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Genesis 8

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1 And God remembered Noah, and every living animal, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters were checked.

2 The fountains also of the deep, and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

5 And the waters decreased continually, till the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, till the waters were dried from off the earth.

8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;

9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him into the ark; for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. Then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in to him into the ark.

10 And he stayed yet other seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;

11 And the dove came in to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf plucked off: So Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

12 And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; which returned not again to him any more.

13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.

14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

15 And God spoke to Noah, saying,

16 Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.

17 Bring forth with thee every living animal that is with thee, of all flesh, of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping animal that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him:

19 Every beast, every creeping animal, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went out of the ark.

20 And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar.

21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every living animal as I have done.

22 While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #868

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868. 'Until the waters dried up from over the earth' means the apparent dispersal of falsities. This is clear from a person's state when he is being regenerated. Nowadays everyone imagines that evils and falsities with a person are totally dispersed and done away with when he is being regenerated, so that when he has been regenerated no evil or falsity is left, and he is therefore clean and righteous, like someone washed and made clean with water. But this is completely false. Not a single evil nor a single falsity is ever dispersed so as to be done away with. Instead everything fixed in him by heredity since infancy and everything he has acquired through his own actions remains. As a consequence, even though he has been regenerated a person is still nothing but evil and falsity, as is forcibly demonstrated to souls after death. From this it also becomes quite clear that no one has any good or any truth at all unless it derives from the Lord, and that all a person's evil and falsity derive from the proprium, and that man, a spirit too, and even an angel, if left in the smallest degree to himself, of himself rushes headlong towards hell. This also is why in the Word it is said that heaven is not pure. 1 This the angels acknowledge, and anyone who does not do so cannot be among them. It is the Lord's mercy alone which gives them freedom, indeed it raises them up from hell, and withholds them from it and from rushing back there if left to themselves. The fact that they are withheld by the Lord to prevent them rushing into hell, angels perceive clearly, as also do good spirits to a limited extent. Evil spirits however, like men, do not believe this, even though they have been shown it many times, as in the Lord's Divine mercy will be described from experience further on.

[2] Man's state therefore being such that no evil or falsity can possibly be so dispersed as to be done away with, because the life which is his own consists in evil and falsity, the Lord in His Divine mercy so subdues a person's evils and falsities by means of temptations while He is regenerating him that they do seem to be dead. They are not dead however, only subdued so that they are unable to fight against the goods and truths that have been derived from the Lord. At that time by means of temptations the Lord also gives him a new ability to receive goods and truths. He does so by granting him ideas of and affections for good and truth towards which evils and falsities can be turned, and by instilling into his general concepts of things - dealt with already - the details and the finer points to such details, which have been stored away in the individual and of which he knows nothing at all, since they are interior to the sphere of his comprehension and perception. The nature of these things is such that they are able to serve as receptacles or vessels, so that charity can be instilled in them by the Lord, and innocence in charity. Through the remarkable combination of these things with a man, spirit, or angel, a kind of rainbow can be represented, and this is why the rainbow became a sign of the covenant, see Chapter 9:12-16, to be dealt with, in the Lord's Divine mercy, when those verses are explained. When a person has been so formed he is said to be regenerated. All his evils and falsities still remain, as also do all his truths and goods that have been preserved. In the case of an evil person, all his evils and falsities, exactly as these existed with him during his lifetime, reappear in the next life and are converted into delusions and hellish punishments. But in the case of a good person, all his states of good and truth, such as those of friendship, charity, and innocence, together with their joys and delights - now increased and multiplied immensely - are recalled in the next life. These are the things meant by 'the waters drying up', namely the apparent dispersal of falsities.

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