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Ezekiel 36

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1 And thou son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say: Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord:

2 Thus saith the Lord God: Because the enemy hath said of you: Aha, the everlasting heights are given to us for an inheritance.

3 Therefore prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Because you have been desolate, and trodden under foot on every side, and made an inheritance to the rest of the nations, and are become the subject of the talk, and the reproach of the people:

4 Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the brooks, and to the valleys, and to desolate places, and ruinous walls, and to the cities that are forsaken, that are spoiled, and derided by the rest of the nations round about.

5 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: In the fire of my zeal I have spoken of the rest of the nations, and of all Edom, who have taken my land to themselves, for an inheritance with joy, and with all the heart, and with the mind: and have cast it out to lay it waste.

6 Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, and to the hills, to the ridges, and to the valleys: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I have spoken in my zeal, and in my indignation, because you have borne the shame of the Gentiles.

7 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: I have lifted up my hand, that the Gentiles who are round about you, shall themselves bear their shame.

8 But as for you, O mountains of Israel, shoot ye forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel: for they are at hand to come.

9 For lo I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be ploughed and sown.

10 And I will multiply men upon you, and all the house of Israel: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the ruinous places shall be repaired.

11 And I will make you abound with men and with beasts: and they shall be multiplied, and increased: and I will settle you as from the beginning, and will give you greater gifts, than you had from the beginning: and you shall know that I am the Lord.

12 And I will bring men upon you, my people Israel, and they shall possess thee for their inheritance: and thou shalt be their inheritance, and shalt no more henceforth be without them.

13 Thus saith the Lord God: Because they say of you: Thou art a devourer of men, and one that suffocatest thy nation:

14 Therefore thou shalt devour men no more, nor destroy thy nation any more, saith the Lord God:

15 Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the nations any more, nor shalt thou bear the reproach of the people, nor lose thy nation any more, saith the Lord God.

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

17 Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it with their ways, and with their doings: their way was before me like the uncleanness of a menstruous woman.

18 And I poured out my indignation upon them for the blood which they had shed upon the land, and with their idols they defiled it.

19 And I scattered them among the nations, and they are dispersed through the countries: I have judged them according to their ways, and their devices.

20 And when they entered among the nations whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when it was said of them: This is the people of the Lord, and they are come forth out of his land.

21 And I have regarded my own holy name, which the house of Israel hath profaned among the nations to which they went in.

22 Therefore thou shalt say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: It is not for your sake that I will do this, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations whither you went.

23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the Gentiles, which you have profaned in the midst of them: that the Gentiles may know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord of hosts, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.

24 For I will take you from among the Gentiles, and will gather you together out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land.

25 And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, and I will cleanse you from all your idols.

26 And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh.

27 And I will put my spirit in the midst of you: and I will cause you to walk in my commandments, and to keep my judgments, and do them.

28 And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

29 And I will save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for corn, and will multiply it, and will lay no famine upon you.

30 And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the held, that you bear no more the reproach of famine among the nations.

31 And you shall remember your wicked ways, and your doings that were not good: and your iniquities, and your wicked deeds shall displease you.

32 It is not for your sakes that I will do this, saith the Lord God, be it known to you: be confounded, and ashamed at your own ways, O house of Israel.

33 Thus saith the Lord God: In the day that I shall cleanse you from all your iniquities, and shall cause the cities to be inhabited, and shall repair the ruinous places,

34 And the desolate land shall be tilled, which before was waste in the sight of all that passed by,

35 They shall say: This land that was untilled is become as a garden of pleasure: and the cities that were abandoned, and desolate, and destroyed, are peopled and fenced.

36 And the nations, that shall be left round about you, shall know that I the Lord have built up what was destroyed, and planted what was desolate, that I the Lord have spoken and done it.

37 Thus saith the Lord God: Moreover in this shall the house of Israel find me, that I will do it for them: I will multiply them as a flock of men,

38 As a holy dock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts: so shall the waste cities be full of flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #883

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883. "And He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. And He Himself will be with them their God." This symbolizes their conjunction with the Lord, which is of such a nature that the people are in Him and He in them.

His dwelling with them symbolizes a conjunction of the Lord with them, as we will see below. The people's being His people, and His being with them their God, symbolically means that they are the Lord's, and that He is their Lord. Moreover, because dwelling with them symbolizes conjunction, it symbolically means that they will be in the Lord and have the Lord in them. Otherwise there is no conjunction. That this is the nature of the conjunction is clearly apparent from the Lord's words in John:

Abide in Me, and I in you... I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

And elsewhere:

At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. (John 6:56)

[2] The Lord's assuming a humanity and uniting it with the Divinity He had in Him from birth, which is called the Father, had as its goal a conjunction with people, as is apparent also in John:

For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in the truth..., that they may be one as We are one: I in them, and You in Me. (John 17:19, 21-23, 26)

It follows from this that the conjunction is formed with the Lord's Divine humanity, that it is a reciprocal one, and that this is the only means of conjunction with the Divine called the Father.

[3] The Lord also teaches that the conjunction is formed by the Word's truths and by living in accordance with them (John 14:20-24; 15:7).

This, then, is what is meant by the Lord's dwelling with them and their being His people, and His being with them their God. So, too, elsewhere where the same words occur: Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4; Ezekiel 14:11; Jeremiah 24:7; 30:22; Ezekiel 11:20; 36:28; 37:23, 27; Zechariah 8:8; Exodus 29:45.

[4] To dwell with them symbolizes a conjunction with them because to dwell symbolizes conjunction out of love, as may be seen from many passages in the Word. It may be seen also from the abodes of angels in heaven. Heaven is distinguished into countless societies, all of them different from each other in accordance with the differences in their love's affections, in general and in particular. Each society embodies one particular variety of affection, and the people in it have dwellings distinct from each other, depending on how close or akin they are within that variety of affection, and those who are the most closely related dwell together in the same house. Dwelling together, therefore, when said of married partners, symbolizes in the spiritual sense conjunction by love.

It should be known that conjunction with the Lord is not the same as His presence. Conjunction with the Lord is possible only with people who turn to Him directly, His presence with everyone else.

  
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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.