The Bible

 

Ezekiel 15

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1 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

2 Son of man, What is the vine-tree more than any tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest?

3 Shall wood be taken of it to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel upon it?

4 Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it suitable for any work?

5 Behold, when it was whole, it was fit for no work: how much less then shall it be fit for any work, when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned?

6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As the vine-tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

7 And I will set my face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them.

8 And I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord GOD.

   

Commentary

 

Walk

  

Walking represents living, and usually means living according to the true things taught to us by the Lord -- to "walk in His ways." When the Lord is pictured walking, it means life itself.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #384

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384. Marriages on earth are the seedbed of the human race and also of the angels of heaven, for as already noted in its own chapter, heaven is from the human race. For this reason, and because they do have a spiritual origin (from the marriage of the good and the true), and because the Lord's divine nature flows especially into this love, these earthly marriages are seen as most holy by heaven's angels. Correspondingly, adultery, as the opposite of marriage love, is seen by them as unholy; for as angels see in marriages a marriage of the good and the true, which is heaven, so in adultery they see a marriage of the false and the evil, which is hell. So if they even hear adultery mentioned, they turn away. This is why heaven is closed to people if they commit adultery because they enjoy it. Once it is closed, the Divine Being is no longer acknowledged, nor is anything of the faith of the church. 1

I could tell that everyone in hell is opposed to marriage love from the aura that emanated from hell. It was like a ceaseless effort to break up and destroy marriages. This showed that the dominant pleasure in hell is the pleasure of adultery, and that the pleasure of adultery is also the pleasure of destroying the union of the good and the true, the union that makes heaven. It follows from this that the pleasure of adultery is a hellish pleasure, diametrically opposed to the pleasure of marriage, which is a heavenly pleasure.

Footnotes:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Acts of adultery are unholy: 9961, 10174. Heaven is closed to adulterers: 275 [2750?]. People who feel pleasure in acts of adultery cannot enter heaven: 539, 2733, 2747-2749, 2751, 10175. Adulterers are merciless and have no religion: 824, 2747-2748. Adulterers' ideas are filthy: 2747-2748. In the other life they love filth and are in that kind of hell: 2755, 5394, 5722. Acts of adultery in the Word mean adulterations of what is good, and prostitution means the distortion of what is true: 2466, 2729, 3399, 4865, 8904, 10648.

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