圣经文本

 

Genesis第19章

学习

   

1 The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth,

2 and he said, "See now, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way." They said, "No, but we will stay in the street all night."

3 He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.

5 They called to Lot, and said to him, "Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them."

6 Lot went out to them to the door, and shut the door after him.

7 He said, "Please, my brothers, don't act so wickedly.

8 See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don't do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof."

9 They said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them!" They pressed hard on the man Lot, and drew near to break the door.

10 But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.

11 They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

12 The men said to Lot, "Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of the place:

13 for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it."

14 Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, "Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city." But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

15 When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, "Get up! Take your wife, and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city."

16 But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife's hand, and his two daughters' hands, Yahweh being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city.

17 It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, "Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!"

18 Lot said to them, "Oh, not so, my lord.

19 See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.

20 See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and my soul will live."

21 He said to him, "Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.

22 Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

24 Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.

25 He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.

26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh.

28 He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.

29 It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

30 Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.

31 The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in the way of all the earth.

32 Come, let's make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."

33 They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.

34 It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."

35 They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she got up.

36 Thus both of Lot's daughters were with child by their father.

37 The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day.

38 The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#2425

学习本章节

  
/10837  
  

2425. 'But I shall not be able to escape into the mountain' means doubt as to whether he would be able to possess good that flows from charity, that is, to think and act from that good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a mountain' as love and charity, dealt with in 795, 1430.

[2] With regard to that doubt, people governed by the affection for truth possess the affection for good within their affection for truth. But that affection for good is in so much obscurity that they do not perceive and so do not know what the affection for good is, or what genuine charity is. They do indeed think that they know, but they do so from truth, and so from acquired knowledge, but not from good itself. Nevertheless they perform the good works of charity, not to merit anything by doing so, but from a sense of obedience. They act in this way insofar as they understand it to be the truth. For they allow the Lord to lead them away from the obscurity surrounding good by means of truth which to them looks like the truth. For example, because they do not know what the neighbour is they do good to everyone they imagine to be their neighbour, especially the poor, who call themselves the poor because they lack worldly riches; they do good to orphans and widows because they are termed such; to strangers because they are such; and so on with the rest. They behave in this way without knowing what is really meant by the poor, orphans, widows, strangers, and many more. Nevertheless because within their affection there is, lying in obscurity, as stated, the affection for good by means of which the Lord leads them to do those things, good is at the same time present with them interiorly. Within that good the angels are present with them, and there take pleasure in the appearances of truth for which those people have an affection.

[3] But those who are governed by good that flows from charity, and from this by an affection for truth, exercise discrimination when performing all those deeds, for they dwell in light, and the light of truth has no other source than good, because the Lord flows in by way of good. They do not do good to the poor, orphans, widows, and strangers just because these are so termed, for they know that the good, whether poor or rich, are pre-eminently the neighbour; for by the good, good is done to others, and therefore insofar as they do good to the good they are doing it through them to others. They know also how to discriminate between one good and another, and so between one good person and another. They call the common good itself their neighbour to a higher degree, for within this neighbour the good of a greater number of persons is seen. The Lord's kingdom on earth, which is the Church, they acknowledge as being their neighbour to an even higher degree, towards whom charity should be shown; and the Lord's kingdom in heaven to an even higher degree than that. People however who set the Lord above all of these, who adore Him alone and love Him above all things, derive all degrees of the neighbour from Him, for in the highest sense the Lord alone is the Neighbour and so is all good insofar as this is derived from Him.

[4] Those however whose disposition is quite the reverse derive degrees of the neighbour from themselves and acknowledge as neighbour only those who show them favour and are subservient to them. Calling these and no others their brothers and friends, they discriminate between them only to the degree that they make one with themselves. All this shows what the neighbour is, namely that everyone is the neighbour according to the love which governs him; and he is truly the neighbour who is governed by love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, but in a different way for everyone. Thus it is the good itself with each one that is the determining factor.

  
/10837  
  

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