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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #11

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11. The fifth state is when he speaks from faith and in so doing confirms himself in truth and good. What he brings forth at this point are animate and are called the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. 1

Footnotes:

1. literally, birds of the heavens (or the skies)

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #6299

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6299. 'Saying, In you will Israel bless, saying, May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh' means so that its own spiritual may reside in the truth of the understanding and the good of the will. This is clear from the representation of 'Israel' as spiritual good, dealt with in 5801, 5803, 5806, 5812, 5817, 5819, 5826, 5873; and from the representation of 'Ephraim' as truth belonging to the understanding, and of 'Manasseh' as good belonging to the will, both dealt with above. So that the spiritual, which is 'Israel', may reside in them is what the words 'In you will he bless' and 'May God make you' mean.

[2] What this really means - that the spiritual, represented by 'Israel', may exist within the truth of the understanding and the good of the will, which are 'Ephraim and Manasseh' - is that the spiritual good represented by 'Israel' is the spiritual part of the internal Church, whereas the truth and good represented by 'Ephraim and Manasseh' are part of the external Church, see above in 6296. So that what is internal may be the internal part of the Church it must of necessity reside in the external part of it, for the external serves as the foundation on which the internal must stand and is the receptacle into which the internal must flow. For this reason the natural, which is the external, must of necessity be regenerated, for if it is not, the internal has no foundation or receptacle; and if it has no foundation or receptacle it is completely destroyed. This then is what is meant by 'its own spiritual may reside in the truth of the understanding and the good of the will'.

[3] Let the following example serve to shed light on this particular matter. The actual affection that charity arouses, that is to say, the calm and blissful feeling a person enjoys when he does good to his neighbour without thought of any reward, is the internal aspect of the Church. But willing it and doing it out of concern for truth, that is, because the Word prescribes it, are the external aspect of the Church. If the natural or the external is not in accord, that is, does not will or perform that action because it sees no reward and so nothing for itself in it - for such self-interest resides in the natural or external man through heredity and his own actions - the internal has no foundation or receptacle in harmony with it. Instead it has that which either turns aside, perverts, or smothers its inflow, and for that reason the internal is destroyed. That is to say, it is closed and blocked off, so that nothing from heaven can come through by way of the internal into the natural, apart from some ordinary degree of light through chinks all around which enables the person to think, will, and speak. But that ability acts in accord with what is in the natural, thus in favour of what is evil and false opposing what is good and true, to which end it makes that ordinary degree of spiritual light flowing in through the chinks all around subservient to itself.

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