The Bible

 

以賽亞書 1

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1 當烏西雅、約坦、亞哈斯、希西家作猶大的時候,亞摩斯的兒子以賽亞得默示,論到猶大耶路撒冷

2 哪,要啊,側耳而!因為耶和華:我養育兒女,將他們養大,他們竟悖逆我。

3 牛認識主人,認識主人的槽,以色列卻不認識;我的民卻不留意。

4 嗐!犯罪的國民,擔著罪孽的百姓;行惡的種類,敗壞的兒女!他們離棄耶和華,藐視以色列的聖者,與他生疏,往後退步。

5 你們為甚麼屢次悖逆,還要受責打嗎?你們已經滿疼痛,全心發昏。

6 掌到頂,沒有一處完全的,盡是傷口、青腫,與新打的傷痕,都沒有收口,沒有纏裹,也沒有用膏滋潤。

7 你們的土已經荒涼;你們的城邑被焚燬。你們的田在你們眼前為外邦人所侵吞,既被外邦人傾覆就成為荒涼。

8 僅存錫安城(原文是女子),好像葡萄園的草棚,瓜田的茅屋,被圍困的城邑。

9 若不是萬軍之耶和華我們稍留種,我們早已像所多瑪、蛾摩拉的樣子了。

10 你們這所多瑪的官長啊,要耶和華的!你們這蛾摩拉的百姓啊,要側耳我們的訓誨!

11 耶和華:你們所獻的許多祭物與我何益呢?公綿的燔祭和肥畜的脂油,我已經夠了;公牛的血,羔的血,公山的血,我都不喜悅。

12 你們朝見我,誰向你們討這些,使你們踐踏我的院宇呢?

13 你們不要再獻虛浮的供物。香品是我所憎惡的;朔和安息日,並宣召的大會,也是我所憎惡的;作罪孽,又守嚴肅會,我也不能容忍。

14 你們的朔和節期,我心裡恨惡,我都以為麻煩;我擔當,便不耐煩。

15 你們舉禱告,我必遮眼不看;就是你們多多地祈禱,我也不。你們的都滿了殺人的血。

16 你們要濯、自潔,從我眼前除掉你們的惡行,要止住作惡,

17 學習行善,尋求公平,解救受欺壓的;給孤兒伸冤,為寡婦辨屈。

18 耶和華:你們來,我們彼此辯論。你們的罪雖像硃紅,必變成白;雖紅如丹顏,必白如羊毛。

19 你們若甘心從,必上的美物,

20 若不聽從,反倒悖逆,必被刀吞滅。這是耶和華的。

21 可歎,忠信的城變為妓女!從前充滿了公平,公居在其中,現今卻有兇手居住。

22 你的子變為渣滓;你的酒用攙對。

23 你的官長居心悖逆,與盜賊作伴,各都喜賄賂,追求贓私。他們不為孤兒伸冤;寡婦的案件也不得呈到他們面前。

24 因此,─萬軍之耶和華以色列的大能者:哎!我要向我的對頭雪恨,向我的敵人報仇

25 我必反加在你身上,煉盡你的渣滓,除淨你的雜質。

26 我也必復還你的審判官,像起初一樣,復還你的謀士,像起先一般。然,你必稱為公之城,忠信之邑。

27 錫安必因公平得蒙救贖;其中歸正的人必因公得蒙救贖。

28 但悖逆的和犯罪的必一同敗亡;離棄耶和華的必致消滅。

29 那等人必因你們所喜愛的橡樹抱愧;你們必因所選擇的園子蒙羞。

30 因為,你們必如子枯乾的橡樹,好像無澆灌的園子。

31 有權勢的必如麻瓤;他的工作好像火星,要一同焚燬,無人撲滅。

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #678

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678. And an evil and noxious sore formed. This symbolizes interior evils and falsities destructive of every good and truth in the church.

The sore here symbolizes nothing else than evil arising from a life in accordance with this chief point of the doctrine, that faith alone justifies and saves without works of the law. For we are told next that it formed in people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image, which symbolizes that faith and a life in accordance with it. Therefore an evil and noxious sore symbolizes interior evils and falsities destructive of every good and truth in the church. Its being noxious symbolizes its destructiveness, and evil cannot but destroy goodness, and falsity truth.

This is the symbolic meaning of the sore because sores of the body arise from a vitiated condition of the blood or some other internal malignancy. So, too, with sores viewed according to their meaning in the spiritual sense. Those sores arise from lusts and their accompanying delights, which are their internal causes. The evil itself symbolized by the sore, which in its outward expressions seems to be delightful, inwardly conceals in itself lusts, from which it arises and of which it consists.

[2] It should rightly be known, however, that the interior constituents of the human mind in everyone exist in a sequential order and in a concurrent one. They exist in sequential order from its higher or prior constituents to ones lower or subsequent. They exist in concurrent order in their outmost or final expressions, though they range in these from interior elements to outer ones, as from a center to the peripheries. The reality of this is something we showed many times in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, nos. 173-281, in a section on degrees. It is apparent from those numbers that the outmost degree embraces all the prior ones.

It follows, therefore, that all lusts for evil exist inwardly in a concurrent order in the evil itself that a person perceives in himself. Every evil that a person perceives in himself exists in its outmost expressions. Consequently, when a person rejects evil, he at the same time rejects also its lusts, though he still does not do this on his own, but from the Lord. A person can indeed on his own reject evil, but not its lusts. Therefore, when he wishes to reject some evil and is fighting against it, he must look to the Lord, since the Lord operates from inmost elements to outmost ones. For He enters through a person's soul and purifies him.

We have said this much to make known that a sore symbolizes evil appearing in its outmost or final expressions, arising from an internal malignancy. This is the case with all people who persuade themselves that faith alone saves, and for that reason do not reflect upon any evil in themselves or look to the Lord.

[3] Sores and wounds symbolize evils in outmost expressions arising from interior ones, or lusts, also in the following places:

From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness... A wound and a scar, and a fresh blow, have not been expressed, have not been bound up, have not been softened with oil. (Isaiah 1:6-7)

...my iniquities have passed through my head... My wounds have putrefied, have decayed, because of my foolishness. (Psalms 38:4-5)

In the day that Jehovah binds up the fracture of His people... He will heal the blow's wound. (Isaiah 30:26)

...if you do not obey the voice of Jehovah..., being careful to do... His commandments... Jehovah will strike you with the sore of Egypt, with hemorrhoids and scabies, and itching... and with an evil sore upon the knees and upon the legs... from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. (Deuteronomy 28:15, 27, 35)

The sore of the boils that broke out on man and beast in Egypt (Exodus 9:8-11) has just this symbolic meaning; for the miracles done there symbolized the evils and falsities with which the Egyptians were taken up.

Moreover, because the Jewish nation engaged in a profanation of the Word, and this is the symbolic meaning of leprosy, therefore leprosy occurred not only in their flesh, but also in their garments, houses, and vessels. The various kinds of profanation were also symbolized by the various evil consequences of leprosy, namely swellings, the sores of the swellings, white and reddish pimples, abscesses, burning feelings, losses of skin pigmentation, scaly patches of skin, and so on (see Leviticus 13). For the church with that nation was a representational church, in which internal things were represented by external ones that corresponded to them.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.