The Bible

 

Genesis 6

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1 And after a time, when men were increasing on the earth, and had daughters,

2 The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took wives for themselves from those who were pleasing to them.

3 And the Lord said, My spirit will not be in man for ever, for he is only flesh; so the days of his life will be a hundred and twenty years.

4 There were men of great strength and size on the earth in those days; and after that, when the sons of God had connection with the daughters of men, they gave birth to children: these were the great men of old days, the men of great name.

5 And the Lord saw that the sin of man was great on the earth, and that all the thoughts of his heart were evil.

6 And the Lord had sorrow because he had made man on the earth, and grief was in his heart.

7 And the Lord said, I will take away man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, even man and beast and that which goes on the earth and every bird of the air; for I have sorrow for having made them.

8 But Noah had grace in the eyes of God.

9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was an upright man and without sin in his generation: he went in the ways of God.

10 And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 And the earth was evil in God's eyes and full of violent ways.

12 And God, looking on the earth, saw that it was evil: for the way of all flesh had become evil on the earth.

13 And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come; the earth is full of their violent doings, and now I will put an end to them with the earth.

14 Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood with rooms in it, and make it safe from the water inside and out.

15 And this is the way you are to make it: it is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

16 You are to put a window in the ark, a cubit from the roof, and a door in the side of it, and you are to make it with a lower and second and third floors.

17 For truly, I will send a great flow of waters over the earth, for the destruction from under the heaven of all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything on the earth will come to an end.

18 But with you I will make an agreement; and you will come into the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

19 And you will take with you into the ark two of every sort of living thing, and keep them safe with you; they will be male and female.

20 Two of every sort of bird and cattle and of every sort of living thing which goes on the earth will you take with you to keep them from destruction.

21 And make a store of every sort of food for yourself and them.

22 And all these things Noah did; as God said, so he did.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #675

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675. As regards the statement 'birds according to their kinds, beasts according to their kinds, and [every] creeping thing according to its kind' it should be recognized that with everybody countless genera and still more countless species exist of intellectual concepts and of desires of the will which are all quite distinct and separate from one another, though the individual is not conscious of it. In man's regeneration however the Lord draws out every single thing in its proper order, separating them all from one another and arranging them so that they may be turned in the direction of truths and goods and may be joined to them. And this takes place varyingly according to people's states, which are countless as well. Yet to all eternity all those things in man's will and understanding can never be totally perfected, for each genus, each species, and each state consists of elements which are limitless both individually and even more so when combined with others. Man does not even know about this, still less can he know in what way he is regenerated. This is what the Lord tells Nicodemus about man's regeneration, The spirit blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who has been begotten of the spirit. John 3:8.

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