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Exodus 20

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1 And God spoke all these words, saying,

2 I am the LORD thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6 And showing mercy to thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

8 Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy.

9 Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath-day, and hallowed it.

12 Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

13 Thou shalt not kill.

14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

15 Thou shalt not steal.

16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.

18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

19 And they said to Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God Speak with us, lest we die.

20 And Moses said to the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

22 And the LORD said to Moses, Thus thou shalt say to the children of Israel; Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make to you gods of gold.

24 An altar of earth thou shalt make to me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep, and thy oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come to thee, and I will bless thee.

25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou shalt lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps to my altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

   

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Apocalypse Explained # 978

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978. (Verse 7) And I heard another out of the altar saying. That this signifies the preaching of the Lord's justice from His celestial kingdom, is evident from the signification of the angel from the altar, as denoting the Lord's celestial kingdom; for by the altar is signified the Lord as to Divine Good, thus also the heaven which is in Divine Good; and this heaven, or those heavens, constitute the Lord's celestial kingdom. That the altar signifies the Lord as to Divine good may be seen (n. 391, 490, 915).

The reason why the angel speaking out of the altar signifies the Lord's celestial kingdom is, that by the angel of the waters speaking, treated of in the fifth verse, is meant the Lord's spiritual kingdom (concerning which see above, n. 971).

Because the Lord's justice is here preached from the heavens, and the heavens consist of two kingdoms - the spiritual and the celestial - therefore preaching is done from each kingdom; and one is meant by the angel of the waters, and the other by the angel of the altar.

Continuation concerning the Fifth Precept:-

[2] Take merchants also for example. Their works are all evil so long as they do not regard and thence do not shun unlawful gains and illicit usury, also fraud and cunning as sins; for such works cannot be done from the Lord, but from man himself. And their works are so much the worse as they are more interiorly skilled in knavery and cunning and in circumventing their companions. And their works are worse in the degree of their skill in effecting such things, under the pretence of sincerity, justice, and piety. The more pleasure a merchant finds in such things, the more do his works originate in hell. But if he acts sincerely and justly, in order to gain notoriety, and by this wealth, so as even to appear to act from the love of sincerity and justice, and does not act sincerely and justly from affection for or from obedience to the Divine law, he is nevertheless inwardly insincere and unjust, and his works are thefts. For, under the pretence of sincerity and justice, he desires to steal.

[3] That this is the case is clear after death, when a man acts from his interior will and love, and not from the exterior; for then he thinks and contrives nothing but cunning devices and robberies. And he withdraws himself from those who are sincere, and betakes himself either into forests or deserts, where he indulges in stratagems. In a word, all such become robbers.

It is different with those merchants who shun thefts of every kind as sins, especially the more interior and hidden kinds, which are carried out by acts of cunning and deceit. Their works are all good, because they are from the Lord; for the influx from heaven, that is, through heaven from the Lord, which affects these things, is not intercepted by the evils mentioned above.

To such, riches do no hurt, because they are to them means for uses. Uses are their tradings, by which they serve their country and their fellow-citizens. They are also enabled by riches to perform those uses to which the affection of good leads them.

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.