The Bible

 

Joel 3

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1 For in those days and in that time, when I let the fate of Judah and Jerusalem be changed,

2 I will get together all the nations, and make them come down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and there I will take up with them the cause of my people and of my heritage Israel, whom they have sent wandering among the nations, and of my land which has been parted by them.

3 And they have put the fate of my people to the decision of chance: giving a boy for the price of a loose woman and a girl for a drink of wine.

4 And further, what are you to me, O Tyre and Zidon and all the circle of Philistia? will you give me back any payment? and if you do, quickly and suddenly I will send it back on your head,

5 For you have taken my silver and my gold, putting in the houses of your gods my beautiful and pleasing things.

6 And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them far away from their land:

7 See, I will have them moved from the place where you have sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your head;

8 I will give your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah for a price, and they will give them for a price to the men of Sheba, a nation far off: for the Lord has said it.

9 Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them come up.

10 Get your plough-blades hammered into swords, and your vine-knives into spears: let the feeble say, I am strong.

11 Come quickly, all you nations round about, and get yourselves together there: make your strong ones come down, O Lord.

12 Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as judge of all the nations round about.

13 Put in the blade, for the grain is ready: come, get you down, for the wine-crusher is full, the vessels are overflowing; for great is their evil-doing.

14 Masses on masses in the valley of decision! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

15 The sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars keep back their shining.

16 And the Lord will be thundering from Zion, and his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth will be shaking: but the Lord will be a breastplate for his people and a strong place for the children of Israel.

17 And you will be certain that I am the Lord your God, living in Zion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem will be holy, and no strange person will ever again go through her.

18 And it will come about in that day that the mountains will be dropping sweet wine, and the hills will be flowing with milk, and all the streams of Judah will be flowing with water; and a fountain will come out from the house of the Lord, watering the valley of acacia-trees.

19 Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction, because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.

20 But Judah will be peopled for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

21 And I will send punishment for their blood, for which punishment has not been sent, for the Lord is living in Zion.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #620

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620. Some comparisons may be made to illustrate the fact that regeneration is impossible without the truths by means of which faith is formed. This can no more exist than a human mind without an understanding, since the understanding is formed by means of truths and so can teach us what should be believed and done, what regeneration is and how it is effected. Regeneration without truths is no more possible than it is for animals to have life or trees to grow without sunlight. For if the sun did not give light at the same time as it gives heat, it would become like a sack made of hair, as described in Revelation (Revelation 6:12), and it would be darkened (Joel 2:10, 31). Thus there would be total darkness on earth (Joel 3:15). The same would happen to a person if he were without truths that emit light. The sun from which the light of each truth radiates is the Lord in the spiritual world. If spiritual light from this source did not flow into human minds, the church would be in total darkness or in the shadow of a permanent eclipse.

[2] Regeneration, which must take place through faith and charity, without truths to teach and guide would be like sailing on a broad ocean without a tiller, or without a ship's compass and charts. It would also be like riding a horse in a dark wood by night. The internal vision of the minds of those who possess not truths but falsities, which they believe to be true, can be compared with the sight of people whose optic nerves are blocked; the eye appears to be intact and seeing, while in fact it sees nothing. This is the form of blindness physicians call amaurosis or gutta Serena. Their rational or intellectual faculty is blocked above and only open downwards. As a result the light of reason becomes like the light of the eye, so that all judgments are mere imagination and strung together out of pure fallacies. Then people would stand around like astrologers with long telescopes, standing in public squares issuing empty prophecies. This is what would happen to all students of theology, if the Lord did not open to them genuine truths from the Word.

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