Joel Chapter 1, the Internal Sense.

(From Swedenborg's work, "The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms")

(Verse 1) The Word has been perverted by false worship,

(2) when instead the Word should have been obeyed by everyone in the Church,

(3) and communicated to everyone who holds false beliefs that arise from evil loves.

(4) Instead, the spiritual things of the Church have been destroyed by sensualism.

(5) Now, remorse should be awakened, because of this loss of faith,

(6) a faith which has been destroyed by the lust of worshipping false gods,

(7) depriving the Church of spiritual truth and good.

(8) The Church should return to the Lord

(9) with inward mourning and contrition

(10) over the loss of good and truth in the natural and spiritual man -

(11) especially people who seek the good of the Church and who desire its genuine doctrine: for the Church is about to perish.

(12) Spiritual truth, its good, its knowledge, and its delights, which constitute the Church, are perverted.

(13) Only by repentance can communion with the Lord be renewed.

(14) The Church can only remove the evil and falsity by acknowledging and worshipping the Lord,

(15) for the end of the Church is near, when it will be judged.

(16) Good works are not being done, nor are there any people who delight in spiritual things.

(17) Natural good has been subordinated to evil, and the truth and good of the Word are rejected.

(18) Wherefore there is no good in the Church,

(19) and our hearts must be turned again to the Lord: for the love of self has corrupted all things in the church.

(20) Although truth is desired, it has been misappropriated to ourselves.

In Genesis 34:27, this signifies to destroy that posterity destroyed the doctrine of the previous church. (Arcana Coelestia 4503)

In Genesis 49:27, this signifies appropriating to Himself the goods and truths, or people that are snatched away and delivered. (Arcana Coelestia 6442)

In Exodus 3:22, this signifies that knowledges of good and truth are to be taken away from people who are in falsities and consequent evils. (Arcana Coelestia 6917, 6920)

'Spoil,' as in Deuteronomy 13:16, signifies the falsification of truth.

In Nahum 2:9, this signifies evil from falsity or violence to good and truth inflicted by falsity. (Arcana Coelestia 6978[2], Apocalypse Explained 355[23])

(Ссылки: Arcana Coelestia 4503 [1-11])