Exodus 23
1
Thou shalt not take up a false report: put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.
2
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to wrest [justice]:
3
neither shalt thou favor a poor man in his cause.
4
If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.
5
If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, thou shalt forbear to leave him, thou shalt surely release [it] with him.
6
Thou shalt not wrest the justice [due] to thy poor in his cause.
7
Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
8
And thou shalt take no bribe: for a bribe blindeth them that have sight, and perverteth the words of the righteous.
9
And a sojourner shalt thou not oppress: for ye know the heart of a sojourner, seeing ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
10
And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof:
11
but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beast of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, [and] with thy oliveyard.
12
Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the sojourner, may be refreshed.
13
And in all things that I have said unto you take ye heed: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.
14
Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
15
The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep: seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it thou camest out from Egypt); and none shall appear before me empty:
16
and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou sowest in the field: and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labors out of the field.
17
Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord Jehovah.
18
Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.
19
The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in it mother's milk.
20
Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
21
Take ye heed before him, and hearken unto his voice; provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him.
22
But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
23
For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: and I will cut them off.
24
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.
25
And ye shall serve Jehovah your God, and he will bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
26
There shall none cast her young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.
27
I will send my terror before thee, and will discomfit all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
28
And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
29
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee.
30
By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
31
And I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand: and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
32
Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
33
They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.
Arcana Coelestia #10645
10645. 'Therefore you shall not bow down to any other god' means that the Lord alone is to be worshipped in faith and love. This is clear from the meaning of 'bowing down' as adoring and worshipping. The reason why the Lord alone and no other is the One who is to be worshipped is that 'Jehovah' and 'God' are used in the Word to mean the Lord, see in the places referred to in 9315, 9373, and that the Lord is the God of heaven and earth, also the one and only God, in the places referred to in 9194. The reason for saying that the Lord is to be worshipped in faith and love is that worship of the Lord springs either from faith or from love. Worship that springs from faith is called worship in accord with truths, for truths belong to faith, and worship that springs from love is called worship springing from good, for good belongs to love. Those who are in the Lord's spiritual kingdom worship Him in faith, whereas those who are in His celestial kingdom do so in love.
[2] But something must be said to show what worship of the Lord in faith and love is like. Very many people suppose that they worship the Lord in faith when they believe the things contained in the teachings of the Church, and that they worship the Lord in love when they love Him. But worship of the Lord does not consist in mere belief nor in mere love; rather it consists in leading a life in accord with His commandments. For those who do so, they alone are the ones who believe in the Lord and love Him. All others may say that they believe in the Lord but they do not in fact believe in Him, and they may say that they love Him but they do not in fact do so. The reason why only those who lead a life in accord with His commandments believe in the Lord and love Him is that the Lord cannot be where there is an understanding of truth but no will or desire for it, only where there is an understanding of truth coupled with a will or desire for it. For truth does not enter a person and become his until he wills or desires it, and in willing it does it; for the will is the real person, whereas the understanding is the person only insofar as it is rooted in the will. The Lord is also present with a person in his truths that spring from good with him; and truths springing from good are ones that a person wills or desires and consequently does, not those which he understands and does without any desire for them in his will. For without any desire in the will the doing of them is hypocrisy, since they are done before men and not before the Lord.
[3] Neither does the Lord reside with a person who is an empty shell, that is, who possesses no knowledge of His truths and does not do them. It is in those truths which spring from good, that is, which a person wills or desires and does, that the Lord is present with a person; for truths springing from good compose the Church as it exists in him, and they compose heaven as this exists in him. In short, they cause the Lord Himself to reside in him.
[4] Reason alone tells people that this is so, if they weigh the matter up; they can see that truths serve to shape the whole understanding part of the human mind, and forms of good to shape the whole will part. For all things that exist throughout creation have connection with truth and with good; and the human understanding has been made to receive truths and the human will to receive forms of good. The truths which a person believes are called the truths of faith, and the forms of good that fill a person with delight are called forms of the good of love. From this it becomes clear that what the truths of faith shaping the understanding are like, and what the forms of the good of love shaping the will are like, determines what a person is like; for a person is a person by virtue of his understanding and will. If therefore God's truths come to shape his understanding and become the constituents of his faith, and the forms of good which become the components of his love give shape to his will, it follows that heaven then exists within that person, and that the Lord resides with that person as in His heaven. For Divine Truths which make up the understanding and forms of Divine Good which make up the will come from the Lord, or are the Lord's; and those things which are the Lord's are Himself. From this it is evident that believing in the Lord consists in filling one's understanding with the truths of faith, that loving the Lord consists in filling one's will with forms of the good of love, and that neither of these things is accomplished except by learning truths from the Word, willing them, and doing them. Whether you say willing and doing or you say loving, it amounts to the same thing; for what a person loves he wills, and what he actively wills he loves.
[5] From all this it may now be seen what worshipping the Lord in faith and love really is. That the nature of it is as described is also evident from the consideration that the Lord wills or desires the salvation of all. His desire to save a person implies His desire to lead him towards Himself, to heaven. This cannot be accomplished unless the Lord is in him; and the Lord cannot be in him at all except in such things residing in him as come from Himself. Those things are truths springing from good, thus commandments of His which the person does in faith and in love; for nothing else exists in a person, or is ever able to exist, that receives the Lord and heaven. Nor does heaven itself consist of anything else.
[6] The truth that believing in the Lord and loving Him consist in doing His commandments is also what the Lord teaches in John,
If you love Me, keep My commands. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. If anyone loves Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words. John 14:15, 21, 23-24.
And elsewhere in the same gospel,
Remain in My love. If you keep My commands, you will remain in My love. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. John 15:9-10, 14.
The commandments which are to be kept, and in accordance with which people ought to conduct their lives, are presented in the teachings about charity and faith 1 .
Fotnoter:
1. i.e. in the preliminary sections of the chapters explaining Exodus
