6564. 'For the evil with which they repaid you' means that they had become turned away from inflowing goodness and truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'the evil' as a turning away, dealt with in 5746. The fact that inflowing goodness and truth were what was turned away is meant by 'they repaid you'; for 'Joseph' is the celestial, or internal good, 5805, 5826, 5817, 5869, 5877, the channel through which goodness and truth flow in from the Lord. What influx by way of the internal entails is this: The Lord flows in constantly with goodness and truth through a person's internal. The goodness brings life and the heat to sustain it, which is the heat of love, while the truth brings a state of enlightenment and the light that maintains it, which is the light of faith. But with the evil, when that influx passes on into a person's exteriors, it is resisted and rejected, or perverted, or smothered. And to the extent that it is rejected, perverted, or smothered, the way to his interiors is blocked; only here and there does access to them lie open, as if through chinks round about. The ability to think and will therefore remains with the person, though only in opposition to what is true and good. That blockage to his interiors spreads further and further into his exteriors, the more wickedly he lives and the more convinced of falsity he consequently becomes. It spreads right down to the level of the senses, which then becomes the level on which he thinks. When this happens the desires and appetites of the senses remove all else. This is what the state of those in hell is like; for the evil who enter the next life are deprived of any ability to see what is honest and good for the sake of earning monetary gains, important positions, and reputation; then the senses are the level on which they function.

494. 'He died' means that this kind of perception existed no more. This is clear from the meaning of the expression 'to die', which means everything that ceases to be what it once was, as in John,

To the angel of the Church in Sardis write, These things says He who has the seven spirits and the seven stars, I know your works; you are said to be alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen what remains and is at the point of truth, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of God. Revelation 3:1-2.

In Jeremiah,

I will hurl your mother who bore you into another land where you were not born, and there you will die. Jeremiah 22:26.

Here 'mother' stands for the Church. For the course of the Church is such, as stated, that it declines and degenerates, and the perfection of earlier days is lost, chiefly because of the increase in hereditary evil. For every parent adds further evil to that which he has inherited. All evil of their own doing residing with parents takes on a kind of intrinsic nature, and when such evil is frequent in its recurrence, it does become part of their nature. It is added to what they have inherited and is handed on to children and so to descendants. In this way hereditary evil becomes more and more enormous in descendants. This anyone may recognize from the evil inclination in children being just like that in their parents and grandparents.

[2] The opinion of people who imagine that no hereditary evil exists beyond that which, they assert, has been implanted in us from Adam, is utterly and completely false; see 317. In reality everyone is producing hereditary evil through the sins of his own doing, and adding this to what he acquired from his parents. In this manner it mounts up and remains in all his descendants. Nor is it ever moderated except in people who are being regenerated by the Lord. This is the chief reason why every Church degenerates, including the Most Ancient.