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Matthew 6:24-34 : Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God

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24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

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Arcana Coelestia #4001

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4001. 'And black among the lambs' means the first state of innocence. This is clear from the meaning of 'black' as the proprium, and from the meaning of 'a lamb' as innocence, dealt with just above in 3994. The reason why 'black among the lambs' at this point means the first state of innocence is that the proprium of a person who is being regenerated rules at first, for he imagines that he does good from his proprium, and also, so that he can be granted a heavenly proprium, he must do it as if from his proprium, see 1712, 1937, 1947, 2882, 2883, 2891. This is why 'black among the lambs' here means the first state of innocence.

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