The Bible

 

1 Mose 9:20

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20 Noah aber fing an und ward ein Ackermann und pflanzte Weinberge.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1103

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1103. 'Canaan will be his slave' means that people who make worship consist solely in external things are able to perform inferior services. This is clear from what has been stated at verses 25-26, about Canaan being a slave. People such as these are not in fact 'slaves' in the Lord's Church on earth, for there are many of them who hold primary positions and who are over all others. They do nothing from charity and conscience, and yet very strictly they keep up the external things of the Church, and even condemn those who do not do the same. But because no charity and no conscience exist with them, and they make worship consist solely in external things devoid of internal, such persons are 'slaves' in the Lord's kingdom, that is, in the next life; for they are among the unhappy. The types of service they perform there are inferior, which, being many, cannot be explained satisfactorily here, but will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.

[2] Indeed everyone, no matter who, must in the next life perform a use; for the sole purpose for which a person is born is that he may perform a use to the community he is in, and to his neighbour, while he lives in the world, and in the next life may perform a use in accord with the Lord's gracious purposes. It is the same with the human body: everything there must perform a use - even the things which in themselves seem to be good for nothing, such as fluids which in themselves are waste matter, for example the many secretions of saliva, bile, and so on which not only have to serve food passing through but also to separate waste matters and clear the intestines. The same applies to the use performed by manure and dung in fields and vineyards; and so on.

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

The Bible

 

Zechariah 12:6-7

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6 In that day I will make the chieftains of Judah like a pan of fire among wood, and like a flaming torch among sheaves; and they will devour all the surrounding peoples, on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem will yet again dwell in their own place, even in Jerusalem.

7 Yahweh also will save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem not be magnified above Judah.