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Matthew 10

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1 And having called to him his twelve disciples, he gave to them power over unclean spirits, so as to be casting them out, and to be healing every sickness, and every malady.

2 And of the twelve apostles the names are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James of Zebedee, and John his brother;

3 Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax-gatherer; James of Alpheus, and Lebbeus who was surnamed Thaddeus;

4 Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who did also deliver him up.

5 These twelve did Jesus send forth, having given command to them, saying, `To the way of the nations go not away, and into a city of the Samaritans go not in,

6 and be going rather unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

7 `And, going on, proclaim saying that, the reign of the heavens hath come nigh;

8 infirm ones be healing, lepers be cleansing, dead be raising, demons be casting out -- freely ye did receive, freely give.

9 `Provide not gold, nor silver, nor brass in your girdles,

10 nor scrip for the way, nor two coats, nor sandals, nor staff -- for the workman is worthy of his nourishment.

11 `And into whatever city or village ye may enter, inquire ye who in it is worthy, and there abide, till ye may go forth.

12 And coming to the house salute it,

13 and if indeed the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it; and if it be not worthy, let your peace turn back to you.

14 `And whoever may not receive you nor hear your words, coming forth from that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet,

15 verily I say to you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

16 `Lo, I do send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, be ye therefore wise as the serpents, and simple as the doves.

17 And, take ye heed of men, for they will give you up to sanhedrims, and in their synagogues they will scourge you,

18 and before governors and kings ye shall be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations.

19 `And whenever they may deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye may speak, for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak;

20 for ye are not the speakers, but the Spirit of your Father that is speaking in you.

21 `And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and father child, and children shall rise up against parents, and shall put them to death,

22 and ye shall be hated by all because of my name, but he who hath endured to the end, he shall be saved.

23 `And whenever they may persecute you in this city, flee to the other, for verily I say to you, ye may not have completed the cities of Israel till the Son of Man may come.

24 `A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his lord;

25 sufficient to the disciple that he may be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord; if the master of the house they did call Beelzeboul, how much more those of his household?

26 `Ye may not, therefore, fear them, for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, and hid, that shall not be known;

27 that which I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light, and that which you hear at the ear, proclaim on the house-tops.

28 `And be not afraid of those killing the body, and are not able to kill the soul, but fear rather Him who is able both soul and body to destroy in gehenna.

29 `Are not two sparrows sold for an assar? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father;

30 and of you -- even the hairs of the head are all numbered;

31 be not therefore afraid, than many sparrows ye are better.

32 `Every one, therefore, who shall confess in me before men, I also will confess in him before my Father who is in the heavens;

33 and whoever shall deny me before men, I also will deny him before my Father who is in the heavens.

34 `Ye may not suppose that I came to put peace on the earth; I did not come to put peace, but a sword;

35 for I came to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,

36 and the enemies of a man are those of his household.

37 `He who is loving father or mother above me, is not worthy of me, and he who is loving son or daughter above me, is not worthy of me,

38 and whoever doth not receive his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me.

39 `He who found his life shall lose it, and he who lost his life for my sake shall find it.

40 `He who is receiving you doth receive me, and he who is receiving me doth receive Him who sent me,

41 he who is receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward, and he who is receiving a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward,

42 and whoever may give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say to you, he may not lose his reward.'

   

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Divine Providence # 309

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309. Allow me, though, to pass on something I have heard from people in the spiritual world. These were people who believed that their own prudence was everything and that divine providence was nothing. I told them that nothing is really ours unless we want to call "ours" the fact that we are one kind of subject or another, or one kind of organ or another, or one kind of form or another--that no one has any "self" as people usually understand the word "self." It is only a kind of attribute. No one actually has the kind of self that is usually meant by the term. These people who credited everything to their own prudence (we could even call them overly invested in their own image) flared up so violently that fire came from their nostrils. "You're talking paradoxes and madness," they said. "Surely this would reduce us to nothing, to emptiness. We would be some idea or hallucination, or some sculpture or statue."

[2] All I could say in response was that the real paradox and madness was believing that we are the source of our own life and that wisdom and prudence do not flow into us from God but are within us, believing that this is true of the good that comes from caring and the truth that comes from faith. Any wise person would call this claim madness, and it leads into a paradox as well. Further, this is like people who are living in someone else's house, with someone else's possessions, and convincing themselves that they own them as long as they are living there. Or they are like trustees and stewards who claim as their own everything that actually belongs to their superior, or like the servants to whom the Lord gave greater or lesser sums for business but who claimed them as their own instead of rendering an account of them and therefore acted like thieves [Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-27].

[3] These are the people we could describe as out of their minds, as nothing and empty. We could also describe them as strict idealists, because they do not have within themselves that goodness from the Lord that is the actual substance of life, so they have no truth either. They could also be called dead, then, and nothing, and empty (Isaiah 40:17, 23, and elsewhere). They are makers of idols, sculptures, and statues.

There is more on this below, though, which will be presented in the following sequence.

1. What our own prudence is and what the prudence is that is not our own.

2. On the basis of our own prudence, we adopt and justify the conviction that we are the source and the locus of everything that is good and true as well as of everything that is evil and false.

3. Everything we adopt and justify becomes virtually a permanent part of us.

4. If we believed that--as is truly the case--everything good and true comes from the Lord and everything evil and false comes from hell, then we would not claim the goodness as our own and make it self-serving or claim the evil as our own and make ourselves guilty of it.

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