The Bible

 

Genesis 9

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1 And God gave his blessing to Noah and his sons, and said, Be fertile, and have increase, and make the earth full.

2 And the fear of you will be strong in every beast of the earth and every bird of the air; everything which goes on the land, and all the fishes of the sea, are given into your hands.

3 Every living and moving thing will be food for you; I give them all to you as before I gave you all green things.

4 But flesh with the life-blood in it you may not take for food.

5 And for your blood, which is your life, will I take payment; from every beast I will take it, and from every man will I take payment for the blood of his brother-man.

6 Whoever takes a man's life, by man will his life be taken; because God made man in his image.

7 And now, be fertile and have increase; have offspring on the earth and become great in number.

8 And God said to Noah and to his sons,

9 Truly, I will make my agreement with you and with your seed after you,

10 And with every living thing with you, all birds and cattle and every beast of the earth which comes out of the ark with you.

11 And I will make my agreement with you; never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters; never again will the waters come over all the earth for its destruction.

12 And God said, This is the sign of the agreement which I make between me and you and every living thing with you, for all future generations:

13 I will put my bow in the cloud and it will be for a sign of the agreement between me and the earth.

14 And whenever I make a cloud come over the earth, the bow will be seen in the cloud,

15 And I will keep in mind the agreement between me and you and every living thing; and never again will there be a great flow of waters causing destruction to all flesh.

16 And the bow will be in the cloud, and looking on it, I will keep in mind the eternal agreement between God and every living thing on the earth.

17 And God said to Noah, This is the sign of the agreement which I have made between me and all flesh on the earth.

18 And the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan.

19 These three were the sons of Noah and from them all the earth was peopled.

20 In those days Noah became a farmer, and he made a vine-garden.

21 And he took of the wine of it and was overcome by drink; and he was uncovered in his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father unclothed, and gave news of it to his two brothers outside.

23 And Shem and Japheth took a robe, and putting it on their backs went in with their faces turned away, and put it over their father so that they might not see him unclothed.

24 And, awaking from his wine, Noah saw what his youngest son had done to him, and he said,

25 Cursed be Canaan; let him be a servant of servants to his brothers.

26 And he said, Praise to the Lord, the God of Shem; let Canaan be his servant.

27 May God make Japheth great, and let his living-place be in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

28 And Noah went on living three hundred and fifty years after the great flow of waters;

29 all the years of his life were nine hundred and fifty: and he came to his end.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #997

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997. Its being 'given all to you' means enjoyment on account of use, which is 'for food', for whatever is given for food is for use. As regards use, the situation is this: People who are governed by charity, that is, who dwell in love towards the neighbour - from which love the living delight contained in pleasures derives - have no regard for the enjoyment of pleasures except on account of the use that is served; for charity does not exist if there are no works of charity. It is in the exercise of it, that is, in use, that charity consists. Someone who loves the neighbour as himself never experiences the delight of charity except in the exercise of it, or in use. Consequently the life of charity is a life of uses. Such life pervades the whole of heaven, for the Lord's kingdom, being a kingdom of mutual love, is a kingdom of uses. Every pleasure therefore that springs from charity finds its delight in use, and the more pre-eminent the use the greater the delight. For this reason it is the very being and nature of a use which determines the happiness that angels have from the Lord.

[2] The situation with every pleasure is that the more pre-eminent its use is, the greater is its delight. Take one example, the delight of conjugial love: since the seed-bed of human society derives from it, and from that seed-bed the Lord's kingdom in heaven, which constitutes the greatest use of all, it therefore contains, as has been stated, so much delight within itself as to constitute heavenly happiness. The same applies to all other pleasures, their differences depending on the excellence of their respective uses. Those uses are so many and various that they can scarcely be divided into genera and species. One use will relate more closely and directly to the Lord's kingdom, or the Lord, another more remotely and indirectly. From these considerations it is also clear that all pleasures are available to man, yet only for the sake of the use they serve; and thus though they vary according to the use they serve, they share in and receive their life from heavenly happiness.

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