The Bible

 

Amos 5

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1 Hear this word, a lamentation, which I take up against you, O house of Israel.

2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more arise: she is cast down upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

3 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The city that went forth a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went forth a hundred shall have ten left, for the house of Israel.

4 For thus saith Jehovah unto the house of Israel: Seek ye me, and ye shall live.

5 And seek not Bethel, neither go to Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

6 Seek Jehovah, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour [it], and there be none to quench [it] in Bethel.

7 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth,

8 [seek him] that made the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: Jehovah is his name.

9 He causeth destruction to break forth suddenly upon the strong, and bringeth destruction upon the fortress.

10 They hate him that reproveth in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

11 Forasmuch, therefore, as ye trample upon the poor, and take from him presents of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, and ye shall not drink the wine of them.

12 For I know how manifold are your transgressions and your sins mighty: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside [the right of] the needy in the gate.

13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in this time; for it is an evil time.

14 Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live; and so Jehovah, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye say.

15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that Jehovah, the God of hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, the Lord: Wailing shall be in all broadways; and they shall say in all the streets, Alas! alas! And they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

17 And in all vineyards shall be wailing; for I will pass through the midst of thee, saith Jehovah.

18 Woe unto you that desire the day of Jehovah! To what end is the day of Jehovah for you? It shall be darkness and not light:

19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

20 Shall not the day of Jehovah be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21 I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will not smell [a sweet odour] in your solemn assemblies.

22 For if ye offer up unto me burnt-offerings and your oblations, I will not accept [them]; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fatted beasts.

23 Take away from me the noise of thy songs, and I will not hear the melody of thy lutes;

24 but let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream.

25 Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and oblations in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

26 Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of your Moloch, and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye had made to yourselves;

27 and I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith Jehovah, whose name is the God of hosts.

   

The Bible

 

Hosea 4:15

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15 Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, let not Judah trespass; and come ye not unto Gilgal, neither go up to Beth-aven, nor swear [As] Jehovah liveth!

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1860

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1860. That 'there was thick darkness' means when hatred existed in place of charity is clear from the meaning of 'thick darkness'. In the Word 'darkness' means falsities, while 'thick darkness' means evils, as explained immediately below. 'Darkness' is when falsity exists in place of truth, and 'thick darkness' when evil exists in place of good, or what amounts entirely to the same, when hatred exists in place of charity. When hatred exists in place of charity the darkness is so thick that the person is not even aware of its being an evil, let alone of its being so great an evil as to thrust him down in the next life into hell; indeed people who are steeped in hatred find a certain delight and so to speak life in it. This very delight and life have the effect that he hardly knows other than that hatred is good. Whatever favors a person's pleasure and desire, because it favors his love, he feels as good - so much so that when he is told it is of hell he can hardly believe it. Even less can he believe it when he is told that such delight and life is converted in the next life into an utterly foul and corpse-like stench. Even less still can he believe that he is becoming a devil and a dreadful replica of hell; for hell consists of nothing else than varieties of hatred and other such forms.

[2] But of this anyone may know who has any power of thought; for if he were to describe hatred, or to represent it, or to portray it if he were able to in any way, he would not do so except by the use of devil-like forms such as these persons steeped in evil also assume after death. And what is extraordinary, such people can still declare that in the next life they will go to heaven, in some cases for merely saying that they have faith - though in fact the only forms occurring in heaven are those of charity, the nature of which may be seen in what has been told from experience in 553. Let those people now consider how these two forms - of hatred and of charity - can be in agreement in the same place.

[3] That 'darkness' means falsity and 'thick darkness' evil becomes clear from the following places in the Word: In Isaiah,

Behold, darkness is covering the earth, and thick darkness the peoples. Isaiah 60:2.

In Joel,

Let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, for the day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and thick darkness. Joel 2:1-2.

In Zephaniah,

A day of wrath is that day, a day of vastation and desolation, a day of darkness and thick darkness. Zephaniah 1:15.

In Amos,

Is not the day of Jehovah darkness and not light, and thick darkness, and no brightness in it? Amos 5:20.

In these places 'the day of Jehovah' stands for the final period of the Church, which is also the subject here. 'Darkness' stands for falsities, 'thick darkness' for evils; hence both are mentioned. Otherwise there would be a repetition of the same thing, or a pointless excess of words. The term used in the original language however to express thick darkness in this verse embodies both within itself - falsity as well as evil, or gross falsity that produces evil, as well as gross evil that produces falsity.

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