The Bible

 

Revelation 21

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1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

9 And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.

10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,

11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;

12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

13 On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.

14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.

16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.

18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

19 And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;

20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.

26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Explained #1224

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1224. And he said unto me, Write.- That this signifies that these things shall be for a memorial to posterity, is evident from the signification of writing, as denoting to inscribe on the life and faith of man (concerning which see above, n. 222), and as denoting what is certain (see above, n. 898), but in this case that it shall be for a memorial to posterity; for the subject treated of is the church to be established by the Lord, meant by the New Jerusalem, for this is what is understood by the wife of the Lamb; and it is also called His wife (Apoc. 21:9, 10).

[2] Continuation [concerning Omnipresence and Omniscience].- 5. That the Lord, from the intellectual faculty which every man possesses, and from its opposite, is also present with those who are out of heaven and the church and with those who are in hell, or will come into hell and knows their whole state.

Every man has three degrees of life; the lowest he has in common with beasts; this is not the case in regard to the two higher. It is through these two higher degrees that man is man; they are closed with the wicked, but are open with the good. They are not however closed so far as the light of heaven is concerned, which is wisdom and proceeds from the Lord as the Sun; but they are closed to the heat, which is love, and proceeds at the same time from the same source. It is for this reason that all men, even the wicked, have the faculty of understanding, though not that of willing, from heavenly love. For the will is the recipient of heat, that is of love; and the understanding is the recipient of light, that is of wisdom, from this Sun.

[3] The reason why every man is not intelligent and wise is, that he who is not, has by his life closed the receptacle of this love; and this being closed, he has not the will to understand anything but what he loves; for he wills and loves this as the object of his thoughts, and consequently also of his understanding. Since then all men, even the wicked, have the faculty of understanding, and that faculty is from the influx of light from the Sun which is the Lord, it is plain that the Lord is present also with those who are out of heaven and the church, and who are either in hell, or will go there. It is from this faculty also that man has the power of thinking and reasoning on a variety of subjects; beasts are incapable of this; and it is from this faculty again that man lives for ever.

[4] Another proof of the Lord's Omnipresence in hell is, that the whole of hell, equally with the whole of heaven, is before the Lord as one man; but in this case it is a man-devil, that is, a monster. With him all things are in opposition to those which are in the Divine Man-Angel, and therefore from the latter is known everything that exists in the former; that is, from heaven everything in hell is known. For from good evil is known, and from truth falsity; thus all the quality of the latter from that of the former. There are three heavens and three hells; and as the former are distinguished into societies, so also are the latter. Every society in hell corresponds by contrast, to a society in heaven, the correspondence being like that between good and evil affections; for all the societies are affections. Thus as each society in heaven is, as has been said, in the sight of the Lord like one man-angel in the similarity of its affections, as we have stated; so also each society in hell is in the sight of the Lord like one man-devil in the similarity of its evil affections. I have been permitted to see this. The societies of this latter kind appear indeed as men, but of a monstrous form; I have seen three kinds of them, the fiery, the black, and the pallid; all of them have however deformed features, a husky tone of voice, external speech, and a corresponding demeanour. The love of all of them is lascivious and they are unchaste; the delights of their will are evils, and the delights of their thought falsities.

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.