157. Internal Meaning of Ezekiel, Chapter 34

1-4 Respecting teachers who regard their own good only, and not the good of the church. (2)

5-6 In consequence those who are of the church come into an evil life. (2)

7-10 Being such, everything of the church is taken from them. (3)

11-16 When the Lord comes into the world He will gather the church together, and will teach it Divine truths. (11, 11)

16-17 The evil among them He will separate. (3, 11)

18-20 Evil shepherds destroy everything of the church, (3)

21 and destroy the simple. (3, 6)

22-25 When the Lord comes He will teach and save these. (1, 11)

26-31 He will both teach them and protect them from falsities, and they will acknowledge Him. (11)

2363. 'Let me now bring them out to you' means blessedness from these, that is to say, from the affections for good and for truth. This is clear from the meaning of these words when they have reference to the affections meant here by 'daughters'. As regards what is actually involved in all this - that is to say, in the reality that blessedness and happiness lie solely within the affection for good and for truth - all are completely ignorant who are immersed in and take delight in evil. The blessedness lying within the affection for good and for truth is seen by them either as something that does not exist, or as something dreary. By some it is seen to be something painful, or even deadly. This is so with the genii and spirits in hell. They imagine and believe that if the joy belonging to self-love and love of the world were withdrawn from them, and consequently the joy belonging to evils resulting from those loves, no life would be left to them. But when they are shown that such a withdrawal is the starting-point to life itself, bringing blessedness and happiness within, they experience a certain sadness at the loss of their own joy. And when they are brought into the company of others whose lives are such, pain and torment take hold of them. In addition they also start to feel at the same time within themselves something death-like and dreadfully hellish. For this reason they refer to heaven, where that blessedness and happiness reside, as their hell, and insofar as they are able to remove and hide themselves from the Lord's face they go as far away as they can.

[2] Nevertheless everything that is blessed and happy lies in the affection for the good which flows from love and charity, and in the affection for truth that constitutes faith, insofar as such truth leads on to that good. This becomes clear from the fact that heaven, that is, angelic life, lies in everything blessed and happy and also from the fact that its influence is felt from things that are inmost, since it flows in from the Lord by way of inmost things, see 540, 541, 545. At the same time wisdom and intelligence enter in and fill the inner recesses of the mind itself, kindling good with heavenly flame and truth with heavenly light. And this is accompanied by a perception of blessing and happiness which can only be called indescribable. People who have entered this state perceive how empty, how dreary, and how deplorable the life is of those who are subject to evils resulting from self-love and love of the world.

[3] So that anyone may recognize the nature of this life, that is to say, the life of self-love and love of the world, or what amounts to the same, the life that goes with arrogance, greed, envy, hatred, revenge, ruthlessness, and adultery, let him who has the ability to do so caricature for himself some of these evils. Or if he is able, let him paint a picture that accords with the ideas he can get of it from experience, knowledge, and reason. He will in that case see, insofar as his drawing or painting of it is accurate, how shocking those evils are and that they are devilish forms with nothing human in them. After death all who perceive joy in such evils become devilish forms such as these. And the greater their joy the more dreadful those forms are.

[4] But on the other hand if he caricatures love and charity for himself or also finds an expression of it for himself in some outward form, he will see, insofar as his drawing or portrayal is accurate, that it is an angelic form full of blessed and beautiful things, which has what is heavenly and Divine within it. Can anyone believe that those two forms are able to exist side by side, or that the devilish form can be thrown off and transformed into one of charity, and that this can be achieved by means of faith to which the life is contrary? For after death everyone's life, or what amounts to the same, his affection, remains. At that time the nature of affection determines the nature of all his thought, and consequently his faith, which manifests itself as it had existed in his heart.