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Jeremiah 17

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1 The sin of Juda is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, upon the horns of their altars.

2 When their children shall remember their altars, and their groves, and their green trees upon high mountains,

3 Sacrificing in the field: I will give thy strength, and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin in all thy borders.

4 And thou shalt be left stripped of thy inheritance, which I gave thee: and I will make thee serve thy enemies in a land which thou knowest not: because thou hast kindled a fire in my wrath, it shall burn for ever.

5 Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.

6 For he shall be like tamaric in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come: but he shall dwell in dryness in the desert in a salt land, and not inhabited.

7 Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence.

8 And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture: and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit.

9 The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?

10 I am the Lord who search the heart and prove the reins: who give to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices.

11 As the partridge hath hatched eggs which she did not lay: so is he that hath gathered riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and in his latter end he shall be a fool.

12 A high and glorious throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctification:

13 O Lord the hope of Israel: all that forsake thee shall be confounded: they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.

14 Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved, for thou art my praise.

15 Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? let it come.

16 And I am not troubled, following thee for my pastor, and I have not desired the day of man, thou knowest. That which went out of my lips, hath been right in thy sight.

17 Be not thou a terror unto me, thou art my hope in the day of affliction.

18 Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction, destroy them.

19 Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Juda come in, and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem:

20 And thou shalt say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, ye kings of Juda, and all Juda, and all the inhabitant of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates.

21 Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to your souls and carry no burdens on the Sabbath day: and bring them not in by the gates of Jerusalem.

22 And do not bring burdens out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work: sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

23 But they did not hear, nor incline their ear: but hardened their neck, that they might not hear me, and might not receive instruction.

24 And it shall come to pass: if you will hearken to me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burdens by the gates of this city on the sabbath day: and if you will sanctify the sabbath day, to do no work therein:

25 Then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes, sitting upon the throne of David, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall be inhabited forever.

26 And they shall come from the cities of Juda, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plains, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing holocausts, and victims, and sacrifices, and frankincense, and they shall bring in an offering into the house of the Lord.

27 But if you will not hearken to me, to sanctify the sabbath day, and not to carry burdens, and not to bring them in by the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day: I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

   

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Heaven and Hell #364

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364. Poor people do not get into heaven because of their poverty but because of their lives. Our lives follow us whether we are rich or poor. There is no special mercy for the one any more than for the other. 1 People who have lived well are accepted; people who have lived badly are rejected.

Poverty can actually seduce people and lead them away from heaven just as much as wealth can. There are many people among the poor who are not content with their lot, who covet much more, and who believe that wealth is a blessing; 2 so when they do not get what they want, they are enraged and harbor evil thoughts about divine providence. They envy other people their assets, and given the chance would just as soon cheat them and live in their own foul pleasures.

It is different, though, for poor people who are content with their lot, are conscientious and careful in their work, prefer work to idleness, behave honestly and reliably, and lead Christian lives. I have sometimes talked with rural and common people who had believed in God while they lived in this world and had behaved honestly and righteously in their jobs. Because they were impelled by a desire to know what was true, they kept asking what thoughtfulness and faith were, since they had heard a lot about faith in this world and were hearing a lot about thoughtfulness in the other life. So they were told that thoughtfulness is all about living and faith is all about doctrine. This means that thoughtfulness is intending and doing what is fair and right in every task, while faith is thinking what is fair and right; so faith and thoughtfulness go together like doctrine and a life according to it, or like thought and intent. Faith becomes thoughtfulness, then, when we intend and do the fair and right things that we think. When this happens, they are not two but one. They understood this perfectly well and were overjoyed, saying that in the world they had not understood believing to be any different from living.

Voetnoten:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] There is no direct mercy, only mercy through means - that is, for people who live according to the Lord's commandments, whom he in his mercy is constantly leading in this world, and afterwards to eternity: 8700, 10659.

2. [Swedenborg's footnote] High rank and wealth are not real blessings, so both evil and good people have them: 8939, 10755, 10776. Real blessing is the acceptance of love and faith from the Lord and a consequent union [with him], because these bring us happiness forever: 1420, 1422, 2846, 3017, 3408 [3406?], 3504, 3514, 3530, 3565, 3584, 4216, 4981, 8939, 10495.

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

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #661

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661. 'To destroy all flesh in which there is the spirit of life 1 [from] under the heavens' means that all the descendants of the Most Ancient Church would destroy themselves. This is clear from what has just been stated and also from the description of them given already to the effect that step by step they obtained by heredity from their forefathers a mental constitution that resulted in their being steeped more than anybody else in most dreadful persuasions. This came about chiefly because they plunged into their desires the doctrinal matters concerning faith which they had in their possession; and in so doing became such. The situation has been utterly different with people who have no doctrinal matters concerning faith in their possession and who live altogether in ignorance. They are incapable of doing the same, and so are incapable of profaning holy things, and in so doing of closing off the road for remnants. Consequently they are not capable of driving the Lord's angels away from themselves.

[2] As has been stated, remnants are all things of innocence, all those of charity, all those of mercy, and all those of the truth of faith, which a person has acquired from the Lord and learned since early childhood. Every single one of them lies stored away. And if a person did not acquire them, no innocence, charity, or mercy could possibly be present in his thinking and actions, and so no good and truth at all could be present. He would then be worse than any fierce monster, as he would also be if he did possess remnants of such things and yet so blocked their path with filthy desires and dreadful false persuasions that they could not do their work. Such was the nature of the people before the Flood who destroyed themselves and who are meant by 'all flesh in which there is the spirit of life 1 [from] under the heavens'. As shown already, 'flesh' means the whole of mankind in general and the bodily-minded man in particular. 'The spirit of life 1 ' means all life in general, but in a strict sense it was the life in people who had been regenerated. Here therefore the final descendants of the Most Ancient Church are meant. They are here called 'the spirit of life 1 ' or, as in Chapter 7:22 below, 'in whose nostrils is the breath of the spirit of life 1 ' because although no life of faith remained with them they nevertheless derived from their forefathers something of that Church's seed, which they stifled. 'Flesh under the heavens' means that which is merely bodily, 'the heavens' being things constituting man's understanding of truth and his will for good. When these have been separated from what is bodily, a person can stay alive no longer. That which sustains him is his conjunction with heaven, that is, with the Lord by way of heaven.

Voetnoten:

1. literally, of lives.

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