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Ezekiel 36

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1 Also thou son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD:

2 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy had said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:

3 Therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession to the residue of the heathen, and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people:

4 Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen that are around;

5 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Edom, who have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey.

6 Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen:

7 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I have lifted up my hand, Surely the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame.

8 But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come.

9 For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and ye shall be tilled and sown:

10 And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be built.

11 And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old states, and will do better to you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

12 Yes, I will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess thee, and thou shalt be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave them of men.

13 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because they say to you, Thou land devourest men, and hast bereaved thy nations;

14 Therefore thou shalt devour men no more, neither bereave thy nations any more, saith the Lord GOD.

15 Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the people any more, neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord GOD.

16 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

17 Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman.

18 Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols with which they had polluted it:

19 And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them.

20 And when they entered among the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land.

21 But I had pity for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went.

22 Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went.

23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the LORD GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.

24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

29 I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.

30 And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.

31 Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities, and for your abominations.

32 Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord GOD, be it known to you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.

33 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be built.

34 And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.

35 And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fortified, and are inhabited.

36 Then the heathen that are left around you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.

37 Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.

38 As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

   

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Ezekiel 38:18

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18 And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.

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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.