The Bible

 

Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The Bible

 

Genesis 9:6

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6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #7437

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7437. 'behold, he goes out to the water' means that they proceeded from those evils to contemplate further falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'going out' as proceeding in one's thinking from evils to falsities, for when people immersed in evils proceed in their thinking from those evils to falsities they are said 'to go out' because evil, belonging as it does to the will, is inmost, and falsity, since it belongs to the understanding and therefore to thought, is outside it, and this is what 'going out' means in the spiritual sense (it also means evil action proceeding from an evil will, as stated in Mark 7:20-23); and from the meaning of 'water' as truths, and in the contrary sense falsities, dealt with in 739, 790, 2702, 3058, 3424, 4976, 5668, 'the water of the river of Egypt' to which Pharaoh is going to go out meaning falsities, 7307.

[2] As regards proceeding in one's thinking from evils to falsities, it should be recognized that those who are immersed in evils cannot in their thinking do anything other than proceed from those evils to falsities, since evils are what they will and consequently love, and falsities are what they think and consequently believe. For what a person wills he also loves, and what he loves he also bolsters and defends. And evils cannot be bolstered or defended except by means of falsities, which is why, when evil is compared in the Word to a city, falsities are compared to the defensive walls surrounding the city. The reason why those immersed in evils proceed in their thinking to falsities, which they use to defend evils, is that evils are the very delights of their life, to so great an extent that they constitute their life itself. This being so, when they learn from others that those evils are indeed evils, then to guard against their being seen as such they think up falsities which they use to make people believe that the evils are not evils. But if the evils do not dare to make their appearance through falsities they are concealed inwardly and do not reveal themselves, except when fear of the law ceases to exist, or else fear of the loss of reputation for the sake of making gain or for the sake of attaining important positions. When these fears cease to exist the evils burst forth into the open either by way of duplicity or by way of hostility.

[3] From all this one may see that those who are immersed in evils cannot in their thinking do anything other than proceed from evils to falsities. The situation is also similar with those living in a state of goodness, in that in their thinking they cannot do anything other than proceed from good to truths. For goodness and truth go together, as also do evil and falsity, joined to each other so completely that a person who knows that someone is governed by good can know that he is guided by the truth that goes with his good. He can know too that a person who is immersed in evil is steeped in the falsity that goes with his evil, and that the extent to which he is steeped in falsity is determined by the strength of his ability to engage in reasoning and to pervert, and then the extent to which he fears loss of the reputation he needs to have for the sake of gain and position, and how much freedom he wishes to have to do evil. It is astonishing how after using falsities for a certain length of time to defend evils such people then convince themselves that evils are forms of good and that falsities are truths.

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