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Jeremijas 50

Студија

   

1 Viešpats kalbėjo pranašui Jeremijui apie Babiloną ir chaldėjų kraštą:

2 “Paskelbkite tautoms, iškelkite vėliavas, neslėpkite, kad Babilonas paimtas, Belis nebegarbinamas, Merodachas sunaikintas! Jų stabai išniekinti, atvaizdai sudaužyti.

3 šiaurės prieš jį ateina tauta. Ji pavers kraštą dykyne; žmonės ir gyvuliai jame nebegyvens, pabėgs iš jo.

4 Tuomet sugrįš Izraelio ir Judo vaikaisako Viešpats.­Jie eis verkdami ir ieškos Viešpaties, savo Dievo.

5 Jie klaus kelio į Sioną ir keliaus, sakydami: ‘Eikime, glauskimės prie Viešpaties amžina sandora, kuri nebus užmiršta!’

6 Mano tauta tapo paklydusia banda. Ganytojai ją suvedžiojo ir paklaidino kalnuose. Jie ėjo per kalnus bei kalvas ir užmiršo savo poilsio vietą.

7 Kas juos sutiko, rijo juos. Jų priešai sakė: ‘Mes tuo nenusikaltome. Izraelitai nusikalto Viešpačiui, teisingumo buveinei, ir Viešpačiui, savo tėvų vilčiai’.

8 Skubėkite iš Babilono, traukitės iš chaldėjų krašto! Būkite kaip ožiai bandos priekyje.

9 Aš sukelsiu prieš Babiloną daug galingų tautų ir atvesiu jas iš šiaurės. Jos išsirikiuos ir nugalės jį. Visos jų strėlės įgudusio kario rankose, jos pasiekia tikslą.

10 Chaldėja taps grobiu, jos priešai prisiplėš turto užtektinai,­sako Viešpats,­

11 nes jūs džiaugėtės ir didžiavotės, mano paveldo grobėjai, šokinėjote kaip veršiai ant žolės ir baubėte kaip jaučiai.

12 Jūsų motina bus išniekinta ir sugėdinta. Ji bus paskutinė tarp tautų, virs dykyne, sausa žeme, dykuma.

13 Dėl Viešpaties rūstybės ji bus negyvenama. Kiekvienas, praeinantis pro Babiloną, stebėsis ir švilps dėl jo nelaimės.

14 Išsirikiuokite prieš Babiloną, įtempkite lankus prieš jį, šaukite, negailėkite strėlių, nes jis nusikalto Viešpačiui.

15 Skelbkite visur, kad jis paimtas. Jo apsaugos pylimas krito, sienos nugriautos. Tai Viešpaties kerštas jam už jo darbus.

16 Išnaikinkite Babilone sėjėją ir pjovėją. Karui siaučiant, kiekvienas bėgs į savo kraštą, pas savo tautą.

17 Izraelis yra kaip išsklaidytos avys, kurias išvaikė liūtai. Pirmasis jį rijo Asirijos karalius, o po to Nebukadnecaras, Babilono karalius, sutraiškė jo kaulus”.

18 Todėl taip sako kareivijų Viešpats, Izraelio Dievas: “Aš nubausiu Babilono karalių ir jo kraštą, kaip nubaudžiau Asirijos karalių.

19 Izraelį Aš parvesiu atgal į savo kraštą. Jis ganysis Karmelyje ir Bašane, pasisotins Efraimo kalnyne bei Gileade.

20 Tuo metu ieškos Izraelio kaltės ir Judo nuodėmės, bet jų neras, nes Aš atleisiu jiems ir jų nesunaikinsiu,­sako kareivijų Viešpats.­

21 Žygiuok prieš Merataimų ir Pekodo kraštų gyventojus! Žudyk ir naikink,­sako Viešpats,­daryk taip, kaip tau įsakiau!

22 Krašte girdėti šauksmai kovos ir didelio sunaikinimo.

23 Visos žemės kūjis pats sudaužytas ir sutrupėjęs. Babilonas tapo dykyne tarp tautų.

24 Babilone, Aš stačiau tau spąstus ir sugavau tave. Tu to nepastebėjai, bet buvai surastas ir sugautas, nes kovojai prieš Viešpatį.

25 Viešpats atidarė savo ginklų sandėlį ir ištraukė savo rūstybės ginklus, nes tai yra Viešpaties, kareivijų Dievo, darbas chaldėjų krašte.

26 Pakilkite prieš jį, visi kraštai, atidarykite jo grūdų sandėlius, supilkite viską į krūvas ir sunaikinkite­tenelieka nieko.

27 Išžudykite jo veršius, teeina jie į skerdyklą. Vargas jiems! Atėjo jų aplankymo diena.

28 Štai pabėgėliai iš Babilono krašto! Jie praneša Sione apie Viešpaties kerštą, apie mūsų Dievo kerštą dėl Jo šventyklos.

29 Surinkite šaulius prieš Babiloną. Apsupkite jį taip, kad nė vienas neištrūktų! Atmokėkite jam pagal jo darbus; ką jis darė, jam darykite, nes jis didžiavosi prieš mane, Izraelio Šventąjį.

30 Jo jaunuoliai kris aikštėse ir visi jo kariai bus sunaikinti tą dienąsako Viešpats.­

31 Aš esu prieš tave, tu išdidusis! Atėjo tavo aplankymo metas.

32 Išdidusis suklups ir kris, nė vienas jo nepakels. Aš įžiebsiu jo miestuose ugnį, kuri suris viską aplinkui”.

33 Kareivijų Viešpats sako: “Prispausti yra Izraelio ir Judo vaikai. Tie, kurie juos išvedė į nelaisvę, laiko juos ir nė nemano jų paleisti.

34 Atpirkėjas yra stiprus, kareivijų Viešpats yra Jo vardas. Jis rūpinsis jų byla ir suteiks kraštui ramybę, bet privers drebėti Babilono gyventojus.

35 Kardas chaldėjams, Babilono gyventojams, jo kunigaikščiams ir išminčiams!

36 Kardas jo žyniams, kurie taps kvaili, ir kariams, kad išsigąstų.

37 Kardas žirgams, kovos vežimams ir samdytiems kariams, kurie taps kaip moterys. Kardas jo turtams, kurie taps grobiu!

38 Sausra išdžiovins jo vandenis. Tai drožtų atvaizdų kraštas, per savo stabus jie sukvailėjo.

39 Todėl ten gyvens laukiniai žvėrys, šakalai ir stručiai; Babilonas niekados nebus apgyvendintas nė atstatytas.

40 Kaip Dievas sunaikino Sodomą, Gomorą ir jų aplinkinius miestus, taip ir Babilonas bus sunaikintas, niekas jame negyvens.

41 Galinga tauta ateinašiaurės ir daug karalių iš žemės pakraščių.

42 Jie ginkluoti lankais ir ietimis, žiaurūs bei negailestingi. Jie atūžia kaip jūra, joja ant žirgų, pasirengę kovai prieš tave, Babilono dukra!

43 Babilono karalius, išgirdęs apie juos, nuleido rankas; jį apėmė baimė ir skausmai tarsi gimdyvę.

44 Kaip liūtas iš Jordano tankynės jis pakyla ir ateina prieš stipriųjų buveines, bet Aš jį nuvysiu ir paskirsiu tą, kurį išsirinksiu. Kas yra man lygus ir kas gali man pasipriešinti? Koks valdovas galėtų man prieštarauti?

45 Šai Viešpaties nutarimas Babilonui ir sprendimas chaldėjų kraštui. Iš tiesų net menkiausi iš bandos juos ištrems ir jų buveinės liks apleistos.

46 Babilono paėmimo triukšmas sudrebins žemę, ir jų šauksmą išgirs visos tautos”.

   

Од делата на Сведенборг

 

True Christianity #159

Проучи го овој пасус

  
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159. To these points I will add the following memorable occurrences.

The first memorable occurrence. Once when I was spending some time with angels in heaven, in the distance below I saw a huge cloud of smoke with flames shooting out of it periodically. I said to the angels who were talking with me at that moment, "Although few up here know it, the origin of the smoke that one sees in hell is the hellish spirits' use of reasoning to support things that aren't true; and the origin of the fire seen in hell is their blowing up at others who speak against them.

"It is equally unknown in this spiritual world as it is in the world where I am physically alive that flame is nothing but smoke that is on fire," I added. "I have often observed this myself. I have watched the plumes of smoke rising from the logs in the fireplace. When I set fire to them with a match, I have seen that the plumes of smoke become flames. The flames have the same shape as the plumes of smoke had. The individual particles of smoke become little sparks that burn together. (The same thing happens when you set fire to gunpowder.) The situation is similar in the case of the smoke that we are seeing down below us now. It consists of a great number of things that aren't true. The flame shooting out of it is the intense passion the hellish spirits have to defend the things that aren't true. "

[2] The angels said to me, "Let's pray to the Lord to be allowed to go down and get near them in order to learn what their false beliefs are that are smoking and burning like that. "

It was granted. A column of light appeared around us that went all the way down to that place.

Once down there, we saw four sets of spirits in ranks. They were adamantly defending the idea that one must turn to God the Father and worship him, because he cannot be seen; one must not turn to his Son born in the world and worship him, because he is human and can be seen.

When I looked to the sides, to the left I saw learned clergy, and behind them regular clergy. To the right I saw educated laity, and behind them, uneducated laity. Between us, though, there was a gaping void that could not be crossed.

[3] We turned our eyes and ears to the left where the learned clergy were, with the regular clergy behind them. We heard them reasoning about God in the following way: "On the basis of the doctrine of our church - the single view of God shared by the entire European world - we know that we have to turn to God the Father, because he cannot be seen. By so doing we also turn to God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, who likewise cannot be seen because they are coeternal with the Father. Because God the Father is the Creator of the universe and is therefore in the universe, wherever we turn our eyes he is present. When we pray to him he graciously hears us. After accepting the Son's mediation, the Father sends the Holy Spirit, who carries the glory of the Son's justice into our hearts and blesses us.

"Created as we were to be teachers of the church, when preaching we have felt in our chests the holy effect of that sending and we have inhaled a devoutness from its presence in our minds. We have been affected in this way because we have directed all our senses to a God who cannot be seen, who works not in a particular way in the sight of our intellect but in a universal way throughout the whole system of our mind and body through his emissary Spirit. Worshiping a God who can be seen, a God whom our minds can picture as a human being, would not yield such good results. "

[4] The regular clergy who were behind them applauded these points and added, "Where does holiness come from if not from a Divinity who is beyond our ability to picture or perceive? On first hearing even a mention of such a Divinity, our faces light up and broaden into a smile. Like the caress of some sweet-smelling breeze, the thought exhilarates us and we thump our chests with vigor. To the mention of a Divinity who is within our ability to picture and perceive, we react completely differently. When this comes within earshot it translates into something merely earthly and not divine.

"For the same reason the Roman Catholics conduct their mass in the Latin idiom; from the sanctuary of the altar they take the host, about which they utter divine and mystical things, and display it, and the people fall to their knees, as before the greatest of mysteries, and breathe in the holiness. "

[5] After that we turned to the right where the educated laity were, and behind them the uneducated laity. We heard the following statements coming from the educated laity.

"We know that the wisest people among the ancients worshiped a God who was beyond their power to picture, whom they called Jehovah. Later on in the age that followed, however, people deified their deceased rulers, among whom were Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Apollo, and Minerva, Diana, Venus, and Themis. People built temples for them and worshiped them as divinities. As the times worsened, that worship led to idolatry and eventually made the whole world insane. With unanimous consent, therefore, we agree with our priests and elders that there are three divine persons from eternity, each of whom was and is God. We are satisfied that these three are beyond our power to picture. "

The uneducated laity behind them added, "We agree. God is one thing and a human being is another. We are aware, though, that if someone proposes the existence of a human God, the common people with their sensory concept of God are going to welcome the idea. "

[6] Then the spirits' eyes were opened and they saw us nearby. Annoyed that we had heard them, they immediately stopped talking. The angels, with a power that had been given them, closed the outer or lower levels of the spirits' thought, which were the source of the statements they had just made. The angels opened instead the inner or higher levels of the spirits' thought and compelled them to speak about God from those levels.

The spirits then spoke and said, "What is God? We haven't seen the way he looks or heard his voice. What then is God except nature with all its levels? Nature we have seen, because it shines in our eyes. Nature we have heard, because it sounds in our ears. "

On hearing that, we asked them, "Have you ever seen Socinus, who acknowledged only God the Father, or Arius, who denied the divinity of the Lord the Savior, or any of their followers?"

"No, we haven't seen them," they answered.

"They are deep beneath you," we said.

Soon we summoned some of the spirits from down there and asked them about God. They said the same type of things as these spirits had been saying. The spirits from below also said, "What is God? We can make as many gods as we want. "

[7] We said, "It is pointless to talk to you about the Son of God born into the world, but we are going to do it nonetheless.

"Faith is like a bubble in the air. It was beautifully colored in the first and second ages, but was in danger of bursting in the third and following ages because no one saw God. Therefore to preserve our faith about him, faith in him, and faith from him, it pleased Jehovah God to come down and take on a human manifestation. He did this to bring himself into view and to convince us that God is not a figment of our imagination; he is the absolute being who was and is and will be from eternity to eternity. God is not a three-letter word; he is everything real from alpha to omega. Therefore he is the life and salvation of all who believe in him as a God who can be seen, although he is not the life and salvation of those who say they believe in a God who cannot be seen, because believing, seeing, and recognizing are one. This is why the Lord said to Philip, 'Those who see and recognize me, see and recognize the Father. ' This is also why the Lord says elsewhere, 'The Father's will is for them to believe in the Son. Those who believe in the Son have eternal life. Those who do not believe in the Son will not see life; in fact, God's anger remains upon them. '" (These words occur in John 3:15-16, 36; )

On hearing this, many in the four sets of spirits became so enraged that smoke and flame came out of their nostrils; so we went away. After the angels accompanied me to my home, they went back up to their heaven.

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

Библијата

 

Jeremiah 33

Студија

   

1 Moreover the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying,

2 Thus says Yahweh who does it, Yahweh who forms it to establish it; Yahweh is his name:

3 Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great things, and difficult, which you don't know.

4 For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down [to make a defense] against the mounds and against the sword;

5 while [men] come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city:

6 Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth.

7 I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first.

8 I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, by which they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, by which they have sinned against me, and by which they have transgressed against me.

9 [This city] shall be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and for a glory, before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do to them, and shall fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I procure to it.

10 Thus says Yahweh: Yet again there shall be heard in this place, about which you say, It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal,

11 the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever; [and of them] who bring [sacrifices of] thanksgiving into the house of Yahweh. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first, says Yahweh.

12 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

13 In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him who numbers them, says Yahweh.

14 Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will perform that good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.

15 In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up to David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

16 In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is [the name] by which she shall be called: Yahweh our righteousness.

17 For thus says Yahweh: David shall never want a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel;

18 neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to burn meal offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.

19 The word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying,

20 Thus says Yahweh: If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that there shall not be day and night in their season;

21 then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers.

22 As the army of the sky can't be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites who minister to me.

23 The word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying,

24 Don't consider what this people has spoken, saying, The two families which Yahweh did choose, he has cast them off? thus do they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

25 Thus says Yahweh: If my covenant of day and night fails, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;

26 then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and will have mercy on them.