Arcana Coelestia #10228
10228. 'To make expiation for your souls' means in order that evils may be removed. This is clear from the meaning of 'expiation being made for their souls' as being purified or delivered from evils by means of the truth of faith, dealt with above in 10218; and since purification or deliverance from evils is nothing other than the removal of them, this too is meant by the same words.
A person is not delivered from evils and consequently purified, but is withheld from them when he is maintained in good by the Lord; and in this way evils are removed, see the places referred to in 10057(end).
Deuteronomy 16:9-12
9
You shall count for yourselves seven weeks: from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you shall begin to number seven weeks.
10
You shall keep the feast of weeks to Yahweh your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give, according as Yahweh your God blesses you:
11
and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your male servant, and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in the midst of you, in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.
12
You shall remember that you were a bondservant in Egypt: and you shall observe and do these statutes.
