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Exodus 23

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1 `Thou dost not lift up a vain report; thou dost not put thy hand with a wicked man to be a violent witness.

2 `Thou art not after many to evil, nor dost thou testify concerning a strife, to turn aside after many to cause [others] to turn aside;

3 and a poor man thou dost not honour in his strife.

4 `When thou meetest thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou dost certainly turn it back to him;

5 when thou seest the ass of him who is hating thee crouching under its burden, then thou hast ceased from leaving [it] to it -- thou dost certainly leave [it] with him.

6 `Thou dost not turn aside the judgment of thy needy one in his strife;

7 from a false matter thou dost keep far off, and an innocent and righteous man thou dost not slay; for I do not justify a wicked man.

8 `And a bribe thou dost not take; for the bribe bindeth the open-[eyed], and perverteth the words of the righteous.

9 `And a sojourner thou dost not oppress, and ye -- ye have known the soul of the sojourner, for sojourners ye have been in the land of Egypt.

10 `And six years thou dost sow thy land, and hast gathered its increase;

11 and the seventh thou dost release it, and hast left it, and the needy of thy people have eaten, and their leaving doth the beast of the field eat; so dost thou to thy vineyard -- to thine olive-yard.

12 `Six days thou dost do thy work, and on the seventh day thou dost rest, so that thine ox and thine ass doth rest, and the son of thine handmaid and the sojourner is refreshed;

13 and in all that which I have said unto you ye do take heed; and the name of other gods ye do not mention; it is not heard on thy mouth.

14 `Three times thou dost keep a feast to Me in a year;

15 the Feast of Unleavened things thou dost keep; seven days thou dost eat Unleavened things, as I have commanded thee, at the time appointed [in] the month of Abib; for in it thou hast come forth out of Egypt, and ye do not appear [in] My presence empty;

16 and the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of thy works which thou sowest in the field; and the Feast of the In-Gathering, in the outgoing of the year, in thy gathering thy works out of the field.

17 `Three times in a year do all thy males appear before the face of the Lord Jehovah.

18 `Thou dost not sacrifice on a fermented thing the blood of My sacrifice, and the fat of My festival doth not remain till morning;

19 the beginning of the first-fruits of thy ground thou dost bring into the house of Jehovah thy God; thou dost not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

20 `Lo, I am sending a messenger before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee in unto the place which I have prepared;

21 be watchful because of his presence, and hearken to his voice, rebel not against him, for he beareth not with your transgression, for My name [is] in his heart;

22 for, if thou diligently hearken to his voice, and hast done all that which I speak, then I have been at enmity with thine enemies, and have distressed those distressing thee.

23 `For My messenger goeth before thee, and hath brought thee in unto the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and I have cut them off.

24 `Thou dost not bow thyself to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their doings, but dost utterly devote them, and thoroughly break their standing pillars.

25 `And ye have served Jehovah your God, and He hath blessed thy bread and thy water, and I have turned aside sickness from thine heart;

26 there is not a miscarrying and barren one in thy land; the number of thy days I fulfil:

27 My terror I send before thee, and I have put to death all the people among whom thou comest, and I have given the neck of all thine enemies unto thee.

28 `And I have sent the hornet before thee, and it hath cast out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee;

29 I cast them not out from before thee in one year, lest the land be a desolation, and the beast of the field hath multiplied against thee;

30 little [by] little I cast them out from before thee, till thou art fruitful, and hast inherited the land.

31 `And I have set thy border from the Red Sea, even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I give into your hand the inhabitants of the land, and thou hast cast them out from before thee;

32 thou dost not make a covenant with them, and with their gods;

33 they do not dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to sin against Me when thou servest their gods, when it becometh a snare to thee.'

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 9193

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9193. 'Shall be utterly destroyed' means being cast out. This is clear from the meaning of 'being utterly destroyed', when it refers to people whose worship is that of falsities arising from evil, as being cast out, that is to say, cast out of the Church. The fact that casting such falsities out of the Church, and so rooting them out, is meant by their being 'utterly destroyed', is evident in Moses,

If men of belial 1 have gone out of your midst, and have urged the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, whom you have not known - if it is true and certain, 2 that [this] abomination has been committed in the midst of you - you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword. You shall utterly destroy it and everyone who is in it, and also the beasts in it, with the edge of the sword. You shall bring together all the spoil from it into the middle of the street, and shall burn the city with fire, and all the spoil from it, the whole of it, to Jehovah your God, so that it may be a heap forever and not be built ever again. Do it so thoroughly that nothing of what is given to utter destruction sticks in your hand. Deuteronomy 13:13-17.

[2] The fact that falsity arising from evil is what 'that which is given to utter destruction' means is evident from the details of these verses in the internal sense. 'Cities' which were to be utterly destroyed are religious teachings, in this instance false teachings, 2712, 2943, 3216. 'The edge of the sword' with which they were to strike man and beast is truth fighting against and destroying falsity that arises from evil, 2799, 4499, 7102, 8294. 'The street' into the middle of which the spoil was to be brought is truth presented by religious teachings and in the contrary sense falsity presented by them, 2336. 'Fire' with which the spoil was to be burned along with the city is the evil of self-love, 1297, 2446, 5071, 5215, 6314, 6832, 7324. From all this it is evident that 'utter destruction' means being cast out of the Church and being rooted out. Therefore also it was commanded that the nations in the land of Canaan should be utterly destroyed, Deuteronomy 7:2, 24-26. For the nations had originally constituted the Church in that land, which also was why they had altars and in addition offered sacrifices, 3686, 4447, 4516, 4517, 5136, 6306, 6516, 8054. But when they turned representative worship - the worship of the Ancient Church - into idolatrous worship, and in so doing falsified truths and adulterated forms of good, 8317, the command came for them to be given to utter destruction, not only people but also cities and what was in them.

[3] The command came because everything there represented falsities arising from evil. The cities represented the actual teachings presenting falsity; the beasts represented evil affections; the gold and silver of those people represented evils and falsities; and so on with everything else. The worship of the Ancient Church had consisted first and foremost in worshipping God in human form, that is, in worshipping the Lord. But then they turned aside from good to evil and began to worship the actual objects that had served to represent Him, such as the sun, moon, and stars, also groves and pillars, and God in the form of various kinds of idols. Thus they worshipped external objects separated from anything of an internal nature; and this is brought about when the internal man has been closed. What closes the internal man is a life of evil; for good is that through which the Lord flows in and opens the internal man, and therefore evil is that which closes this. Once the internal man has been closed truths are turned into falsities; and when they remain they serve solely the evils of self-love and love of the world. Internal worship consists first and foremost in acknowledging the Lord, the one and only God, and in acknowledging that He is the source of everything good and true. People in the Church who do not acknowledge Him cannot be governed by good, nor thus by truth; and the ones to acknowledge Him are those who possess faith and at the same time lead a good life, but not those who lead a bad life, 8878. Acknowledging and worshipping the Lord consists in living according to His commandments, that is, leading the life of faith and of charity, see 8252-8257. The life of faith lies in doing His commandments in a spirit of obedience, and the life of charity lies in doing them out of love.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. A Hebrew word implying those who are worthless

2. literally, if [it is] truth, and the thing certain

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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Isaiah 65:12

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12 I will destine you to the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not hear; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn't delight."