The Bible

 

Ezekiel 11

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1 And the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into the east gate of the house of the Lord, which looketh towards the rising of the sun: and behold in the entry of the gate five and twenty men: and I saw in the midst of them Jezonias the son of Azur, and Pheltias the son of Banaias, princes of the people.

2 And he said to me: Son of man, these are the men that study iniquity, and frame a wicked counsel in this city,

3 Saying: Were not houses lately built? This city is the caldron, and we the flesh.

4 Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, thou son of man.

5 And the spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said to me: Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Thus have you spoken, O house of Israel, for I know the thoughts of your heart.

6 You have killed a great many in this city, and you have filled the streets thereof with the slain.

7 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Your slain, whom you have laid in the midst thereof, they are the flesh, and this is the caldron: and I will bring you forth out of the midst thereof.

8 You have feared the sword, and I will bring the sword upon you, saith the Lord God.

9 And I will cast you out of the midst thereof, and I will deliver you into the hand of the enemies, and I will execute judgments upon you.

10 You shall fall by the sword: I will judge you in the borders of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

11 This shall not be as a caldron to you, and you shall not be as flesh in the midst thereof: I will judge you in the borders of Israel.

12 And you shall know that I am the Lord: because you have not walked in my commandments, and have not done my judgments, but you have done according to the judgments of the nations that; are round about you.

13 And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pheltias the son of Banaias died: and I fell down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice: and said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God: wilt thou make an end of all the remnant of Israel?

14 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

15 Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren, thy kinsmen, and all the house of Israel, all they to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said: Get ye far from the Lord, the land is given in possession to us.

16 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because I have removed them far off among the Gentiles, and because I have scattered them among the countries: I will be to them a little sanctuary in the countries whither they are come.

17 Therefore speak to them: Thus saith the Lord God: I will gather you from among the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries wherein you are scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

18 And they shall go in thither, and shall take away all the scandals, and all the abominations thereof from thence.

19 And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh:

20 That they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments, and do them: and that they may be my people, and I may be their God.

21 But as for them whose heart walketh after their scandals and abominations, I will lay their way upon their head, saith the Lord God.

22 And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and the wheels with them: and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.

23 And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood over the mount that is on the east side of the city.

24 And the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into Chaldea, to them of the captivity, in vision, by the spirit of God: and the vision which I had seen was taken up from me.

25 And I spoke to them of the captivity all the words of the Lord, which he had shewn me.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Doctrine of Life #86

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86. A person has a natural mind and a spiritual mind. The natural mind is below and the spiritual mind above.

The natural mind is the mind he has in the world, and the spiritual mind is the mind he has in heaven.

The natural mind may be termed his animal mind, and the spiritual mind his human mind.

Human beings also differ from animals by their having a spiritual mind. By virtue of that mind they can be in heaven while still living in the world. It is also by virtue of that mind that a person lives on after death.

[2] A person may be intellectually functional in his spiritual mind and so in heaven, but he cannot be volitionally functional in his spiritual mind and so in heaven unless he refrains from evils as being sins. If he is not volitionally functional in that mind, he is still not in heaven, because his will draws his understanding downward and causes it to be just as natural and animal as itself.

[3] A person may be likened to a garden, with his intellect likened to light, and his will to warmth. A garden has the benefit of light and not at the same time of warmth in wintertime, but of light and warmth together in summertime. A person who has only light in his intellect is like a garden in winter, whereas someone who has both light in his intellect and warmth in his will is like a garden in summer.

Spiritual light also causes the intellect to grow wise, and spiritual warmth causes the will to become loving. For spiritual light is Divine wisdom, and spiritual warmth is Divine love.

[4] As long as a person does not refrain from evils as being sins, the inner regions of the natural mind are, as regards the will, blocked up by lusts for those evils, where they form a kind of thick veil and a kind of dark cloud beneath the spiritual mind and keep it from opening.

On the other hand, as soon as a person refrains from evils as being sins, the Lord flows in then from heaven, removes the veil, dispels the cloud, and opens the spiritual mind, and so introduces the person into heaven.

[5] Lusts for evils block up, as we said, the inner regions of the natural mind, and as long as they do, the person is for that time in hell. But as soon as those lusts have been dispersed by the Lord, the person is in heaven.

So, too, as long as lusts for evils block up the inner regions of the natural mind, the person remains for that time a natural person. But as soon as those lusts have been dispersed by the Lord, the person is a spiritual person.

Again, as long as lusts for evils block up the inner regions of the natural mind, the person is for that time an animal. He differs only in the fact that he can think and speak, even about matters not visible to the eye, a faculty he has from his ability to raise his intellect into the light of heaven. But as soon as those lusts have been dispersed by the Lord, the person becomes human, because he then thinks true thoughts in his intellect from goodness in his will.

Moreover, as long as the lusts for evils block up the inner regions of the natural mind, the person is for that time like a garden in winter. But as soon as those lusts have been dispersed by the Lord, he is like a garden in summer.

[6] The union of will and intellect in a person is meant in the Word by heart and soul and by heart and spirit. So we are told, for example, to love God with all our heart and with all our soul (Matthew 22:37), and that God will give us a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26-27). The heart means the will and its love, and the soul or spirit means the intellect and its wisdom.

  
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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.