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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 # 9334

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9334. Lest perchance the land be desolate. That this signifies a deficiency in that case, and but little spiritual life-namely, if the removal should be hasty-is evident from the signification of “the land,” as being the church in general and also in particular. The church in particular is the man who becomes a church; for the church is in man, and is the regenerated man. (That “the land” denotes the church in general, see n. 9325; and that it denotes the church in particular, or the regenerated man, n. 82, 620, 636, 913, 1411, 1733, 2117, 2118 at the end, 2571, 3368, 3379.) A regenerate man is called “a land” also in Malachi:

All nations shall proclaim you blessed, for ye shall be a well-pleasing land (Malachi 3:12).

And from the signification of “desolate,” as being a deficiency and but little of spiritual life; for by “desolate,” when said of the church in man, is signified a lack of truth and of good, thus also a lack of spiritual life; for spiritual life is thence derived.

[2] In regard to there being a deficiency and but little of spiritual life if falsities and evils were hastily removed, the case is this. When a man is being regenerated, which is effected by the implanting of spiritual truth and good, and by the removal at the same time of falsity and evil, he is not regenerated hastily, but slowly. The reason is that all things the man, from his infancy, has thought, intended, and done, have added themselves to his life, and have made it, and likewise have formed such a connection among themselves that no one thing can be taken away unless all are taken away at the same time. For an evil man is an image of hell, and a good man is an image of heaven; and the evils and falsities with an evil man have such a connection among themselves as there is among the infernal societies, of which he is a part; and the goods and truths with a good man have such a connection among themselves as there is among the heavenly societies, of which he is a part. From this it is evident that the evils and falsities with an evil man cannot be removed from their place suddenly; but only in proportion as goods and truths are implanted in their order, and interiorly; for heaven in a man removes hell from him. If this were done suddenly, the man would fail; for each and all things that are in connection and form would be disturbed, and would take away his life.

[3] (That regeneration, or the implanting of the life of heaven in man, begins from his infancy and continues even to the last of his life in the world, and that after his life in the world it is perfected to eternity, see n. 2679, 3203, 3584, 3665, 3690, 3701, 4377, 4551, 4552, 5126, 6751, 9103, 9296, 9297; especially n. 5122, 5398, 5912, 9258.) Moreover-and this is a secret-man’s regeneration in the world is only a plane for the perfecting of his life to eternity. (That a man who has lived in good is perfected in the other life, may be seen from what has been shown concerning infants, n. 2289-2309; and concerning the state and lot of the Gentiles in that life, n. 2589-2604)

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