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Matthew 8

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1 And when he came down from the mount, great multitudes did follow him,

2 and lo, a leper having come, was bowing to him, saying, `Sir, if thou art willing, thou art able to cleanse me;'

3 and having stretched forth the hand, Jesus touched him, saying, `I will, be thou cleansed,' and immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

4 And Jesus saith to him, `See, thou mayest tell no one, but go, thyself shew to the priest, and bring the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony to them.'

5 And Jesus having entered into Capernaum, there came to him a centurion calling upon him,

6 and saying, `Sir, my young man hath been laid in the house a paralytic, fearfully afflicted,'

7 and Jesus saith to him, `I, having come, will heal him.'

8 And the centurion answering said, `Sir, I am not worthy that thou mayest enter under my roof, but only say a word, and my servant shall be healed;

9 for I also am a man under authority, having under myself soldiers, and I say to this one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Be coming, and he cometh, and to my servant, Do this, and he doth [it].'

10 And Jesus having heard, did wonder, and said to those following, `Verily I say to you, not even in Israel so great faith have I found;

11 and I say to you, that many from east and west shall come and recline (at meat) with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the reign of the heavens,

12 but the sons of the reign shall be cast forth to the outer darkness -- there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth.'

13 And Jesus said to the centurion, `Go, and as thou didst believe let it be to thee;' and his young man was healed in that hour.

14 And Jesus having come into the house of Peter, saw his mother-in-law laid, and fevered,

15 and he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose, and was ministering to them.

16 And evening having come, they brought to him many demoniacs, and he did cast out the spirits with a word, and did heal all who were ill,

17 that it might be fulfilled that was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, `Himself took our infirmities, and the sicknesses he did bear.'

18 And Jesus having seen great multitudes about him, did command to depart to the other side;

19 and a certain scribe having come, said to him, `Teacher, I will follow thee wherever thou mayest go;'

20 and Jesus saith to him, `The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven places of rest, but the Son of Man hath not where he may lay the head.'

21 And another of his disciples said to him, `Sir, permit me first to depart and to bury my father;'

22 and Jesus said to him, `Follow me, and suffer the dead to bury their own dead.'

23 And when he entered into the boat his disciples did follow him,

24 and lo, a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was being covered by the waves, but he was sleeping,

25 and his disciples having come to him, awoke him, saying, `Sir, save us; we are perishing.'

26 And he saith to them, `Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' Then having risen, he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm;

27 and the men wondered, saying, `What kind -- is this, that even the wind and the sea do obey him?'

28 And he having come to the other side, to the region of the Gergesenes, there met him two demoniacs, coming forth out of the tombs, very fierce, so that no one was able to pass over by that way,

29 and lo, they cried out, saying, `What -- to us and to thee, Jesus, Son of God? didst thou come hither, before the time, to afflict us?'

30 And there was far off from them a herd of many swine feeding,

31 and the demons were calling on him, saying, `If thou dost cast us forth, permit us to go away to the herd of the swine;'

32 and he saith to them, `Go.' And having come forth, they went to the herd of the swine, and lo, the whole herd of the swine rushed down the steep, to the sea, and died in the waters,

33 and those feeding did flee, and, having gone to the city, they declared all, and the matter of the demoniacs.

34 And lo, all the city came forth to meet Jesus, and having seen him, they called on [him] that he might depart from their borders.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 6138

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6138. 'And we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves' means total submission. This is clear from the meaning of 'us and our ground' as the receptacles of goodness and truth, as immediately above in 6135-6137; and from the meaning of 'slaves' as existing without any freedom of one's own, dealt with in 5760, 5763, thus total submission. By receptacles are meant human forms themselves. For human beings are nothing else than forms receiving life from the Lord; yet the nature of those forms is such, owing to people's heredity and their own actions, that they refuse spiritual life coming from the Lord. But once those receptacles have been renounced so completely that they no longer claim any freedom of their own, there is total submission. The person who is being regenerated is brought at length, through the repeated experiences of desolation and sustainment, to a point at which he no longer wishes to be his own man but the Lord's. And once he has become the Lord's he passes into a state in which, if left to himself, he is dejected and gripped by anxiety. But when he is brought out of that state he returns to the bliss and happiness that are his, to the kind of state all the angels experience.

[2] The Lord desires any person's total submission so that He can make him blissful and happy. That is, He does not want him to be partly his own man and partly the Lord's, for then there are two masters whom a person cannot serve simultaneously, Matthew 6:24. Total submission is again meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Whoever loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me. Matthew 10:37.

'Father or mother' in general means those aspects of a person essentially his own by virtue of his heredity, and 'son or daughter' those essentially his own by virtue of his own actions. What is essentially a person's own is also meant by his 'soul' in John,

He who loves his soul will lose it, and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it into eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. John 11:25-26.

Total submission is also meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Another disciple said, Lord, let me first go away and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury their dead. Matthew 8:21-22.

[3] The need for total submission is perfectly clear from the Church's first commandment,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Mark 12:30.

Thus since love to the Lord does not come from man but from the Lord Himself, all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, which are recipients, must be the Lord's; they must therefore be submitted totally to Him. Such a submission is what is meant by 'we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves'; for 'Pharaoh' represents the natural in general, which is subject to the control of the internal celestial, in the highest sense to the control of the Lord, who is 'Joseph' in that highest sense.

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