9261. 'You shall keep yourself well away from the word of a lie' means detesting falsity that arises from evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'a lie' as falsity arising from evil, dealt with in 8908, 9248, falsity arising from evil being meant since it is the falsity people should keep well away from because it derives its essential nature from evil, and evil and good are contrary to each other because evil comes from hell and good comes from heaven, where it is received from the Lord (but falsity which does not arise from evil, being falsity due to lack of knowledge, is not the same, see 1679, 2863, 4551, 4552, 4729, 4736, 6359, 7272, 7574, 8149, 8311, 8318 (end), 9258); and from the meaning of 'keeping oneself well away from' as detesting. The origin of this meaning of 'keeping well away from' as detesting lies with things seen in the spiritual world, where people's differences, disagreements, and detestations in regard to aspects of spiritual life keep them apart from one another. For in that world people seen together in the same place are in a like state in regard to their feelings and consequently their thoughts. But as soon as there is disagreement among them they are separated and kept apart from one another, as far away as the degree of disagreement determines. This is what happens because in the spiritual world extensions of space, like periods of time, are states also, and therefore distances are differences between states. Nevertheless states manifest themselves visually there as extensions of space, and the differences between them as distances. Regarding extensions of space and distances, and also periods of time, that they are states, see 1273-1277, 1376-1381, 2625, 3356, 3387, 3404, 3638-3641, 4321, 4882, 7381, 9104. Yet nevertheless there appear to be extensions of space and distances, but such appearances are the direct product of the changes of the state which things on more internal levels undergo, 5605. From all this it is now evident that 'keeping well away from' in the internal sense means detesting.

2305. There are certain people who identify innocence with early childhood, for the reason that the Lord, when speaking about young children, said that heaven consisted of such, and that those who do not become as young children cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. But those who think in this fashion do not know the internal sense of the Word, nor thus what is meant by early childhood. 'Early childhood' is used to mean the innocence that belongs to intelligence and wisdom, the nature of which is such that they acknowledge that they possess life solely from the Lord and that the Lord is their one and only Father; for a person is human because of intelligence and wisdom - essentially truth and good respectively - which people have solely from the Lord. Innocence itself, which in the Word is called early childhood, exists and resides nowhere else than within wisdom, so much so that the wiser anyone is the more innocent he is. Consequently the Lord is Innocence itself, because He is Wisdom itself.