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Genesis 19

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1 And the two angels came to Sodom at even. And Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them; and he bowed down, the face toward the ground,

2 and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and lodge, and wash your feet; and ye shall rise up early, and go on your way. And they said, No; but we will pass the night in the open place.

3 And he urged them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house. And he made them a repast, and baked unleavened cakes; and they ate.

4 Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from the youngest to the oldest -- all the people from every quarter.

5 And they called to Lot, and said to him, Where are the men that have come in to thee to-night? bring them out to us that we may know them.

6 And Lot went out to them to the entrance, and shut the door after him,

7 and said, I pray you, my brethren, do not wickedly!

8 Behold now, I have two daughters who have not known a man: let me now bring them out to you; and do to them as is good in your sight: only, to these men do nothing; for therefore have they come under the shadow of my roof.

9 And they said, Back there! And they said [again], This one came to sojourn, and he must be a judge? Now we will deal worse with thee than with them. And they pressed hard on the man -- on Lot; and drew near to break the door.

10 And the men stretched out their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.

11 And they smote the men that were at the entrance of the house with blindness, from the smallest to the greatest; and they wearied themselves to find the entrance.

12 And the men said to Lot, Whom hast thou here besides? a son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and all whom thou hast in the city -- bring [them] out of the place.

13 For we are going to destroy this place, because the cry of them is great before Jehovah, and Jehovah has sent us to destroy it.

14 And Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, Up, go out of this place, for Jehovah will destroy the city. But he was as if he jested, in the sight of his sons-in-law.

15 And as the dawn arose, the angels urged Lot, saying, Up, take thy wife and thy two daughters who are present, lest thou perish in the iniquity of the city.

16 And as he lingered, the men laid hold on his hand, and on the hand of his wife, and on the hand of his two daughters, Jehovah being merciful to him; and they led him out, and set him without the city.

17 And it came to pass when they had brought them outside, that he said, Escape for thy life: look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: Escape to the mountain, lest thou perish.

18 And Lot said to them, Not [so], I pray thee, Lord;

19 behold now, thy servant has found favour in thine eyes, and thou hast magnified thy goodness, which thou hast shewn to me in preserving my soul alive; but I cannot escape to the mountain, lest calamity lay hold on me, that I die.

20 Behold now, this city is near to flee to, and it is small: I pray thee, let me escape thither -- is it not small? -- and my soul shall live.

21 And he said to him, Behold, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken.

22 Haste, escape thither; for I cannot do anything until thou art come there. Therefore the name of the city is called Zoar.

23 The sun rose upon the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

24 And Jehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven,

25 and overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew upon the ground.

26 And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 And Abraham rose early in the morning [and went] to the place where he had stood before Jehovah;

28 and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, a smoke went up from the land as the smoke of a furnace.

29 And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.

30 And Lot went up from Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar. And he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

31 And the first-born said to the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the land to come in to us after the manner of all the earth:

32 come, let us give our father wine to drink, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed alive of our father.

33 And they gave their father wine to drink that night. And the first-born went in, and lay with her father, and he did not know of her lying down, nor of her rising.

34 And it came to pass on the next day that the first-born said to the younger, Lo, I lay last night with my father: let us give him wine to drink to-night also, and go thou in, lie with him, that we may preserve seed alive of our father.

35 And they gave their father wine to drink that night also. And the younger arose, and lay with him; and he did not know of her lying down, nor of her rising.

36 And both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

37 And the first-born bore a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites to this day.

38 And the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi; the same is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #2401

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2401. 'And said, Rise up, go out of this place' means that they were not to remain in a state of evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'rising up' and 'going out', and also of 'place'. 'Rising up' occurs often in the Word, being one of the common expressions found there, but little thought is given to what else it may mean. In the internal sense however it entails, as it does here, being raised up from evil to good, for the mind is raised up when it draws back from evil, 2388. 'Going out' means drawing back or not remaining, while 'place' means a state of evil, 2393. From this it is evident what the meaning is here.

[2] The character of people who possess cognitions of truth but at the same time lead a life of evil has been stated frequently already - that as long as they lead a life of evil they believe nothing; for to will evil and consequently to do it, and at the same time in faith to acknowledge truth, is not possible. From this it is also evident that a person cannot be saved by thinking and speaking what is true, nor even what is good, if he wills nothing but evil, and as a consequence of what he wills does nothing but evil. Man's will itself is what lives on after death, and not so much his thinking apart from that which flows from his will.

[3] Since therefore a person's character after death is determined by what he wills, one can see what he is able to think about the truths of faith he has absorbed, indeed taught, seeing that these condemn him. He is in this case so disinclined to think from them that he avoids them altogether. Indeed insofar as he is allowed, he curses them, as the devil's crew do. People who have not been taught about the life after death may imagine that they will find it easy at that time to receive faith when they see that the Lord governs the whole of heaven, and when they hear that heaven is loving Him and the neighbour. But evil people are as far removed from being able to receive faith, that is, from having the will to believe, as hell is from heaven. They are in fact totally immersed in evil and in falsity derived from this. From their mere arrival itself or presence it is recognized and perceived that they are against the Lord and against the neighbour and so against what is good and consequently against what is true. There is an unmentionable sphere which emanates from the life of their will and so of their thinking, 1048, 1053, 1316, 1504.

[4] If it were possible for people to believe and become good merely by receiving instruction in the next life no one would be left in hell; for no matter how many, the Lord desires to raise them all up to heaven towards Himself. For His mercy is infinite since it is Divine mercy itself and is indeed directed towards the whole human race, and so towards the evil as well as the good.

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