The Bible

 

Genesis 3

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1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat:

3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden.

9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 And Jehovah God said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

14 And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

20 And the man called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

21 And Jehovah God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins, and clothed them.

22 And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever-

23 therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #215

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215. The proprium is nothing but evil and falsity. This has been made clear to me from the fact that anything spirits at any time have spoken from themselves has been evil and false, and so much so that the moment I was made to realize that it originated in themselves I knew it was false, even though, when they spoke, they were so sure of its being the truth that they were in no doubt about it. The same is true of the person who speaks from himself. Similarly whenever people have started to reason about the things which constituted spiritual and celestial life or about those which comprised faith, I have been allowed to perceive that they doubted, indeed denied, those things; for reasoning about faith amounts to doubting and denying. And because they reason from themselves, that is, from the proprium, they plunge into utter falsities, and therefore into abysmal thick darkness, that is, thick darkness of falsities. At such times the tiniest quibble weighs more heavily than a thousand truths, just as a speck of dust deposited on the pupil of the eye prevents it from seeing the universe and everything it contains. The Lord speaks of these people in Isaiah as follows,

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and in their own sight are intelligent! Isaiah 5:21

And in the same prophet,

Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, I am, and there is no one else besides me. And evil will come upon you, whose origin you do not know, and disaster will befall you, which you will not be able to expiate, and vastation will come upon you suddenly of which you know not. Isaiah 47:10-11.

In Jeremiah,

Every man has been made stupid by knowledge; every metal-caster is put to shame by his statue, for the idol he moulds is a lie, and there is no spirit in those things. Jeremiah 51:17.

'Statue' stands for the falsity which belongs to the proprium, and 'idol' for the evil which belongs to it.

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