even knowing what truth and justice are, they are dismissed after a few
days. I have seen some transferred from one community to another and
given administrative responsibilities in each community, but in every case
after a short while they are dismissed.
[ 7 ] ( 7 ) After being repeatedly forced out of office, some are too worn
out to run for further offices, and others do not dare to do so because
they are afraid of ruining their reputation; so they leave and sit around
feeling depressed. Then they are taken out into the wilderness where
there are shelters. They enter these shelters and are given work to do. If
they do the work they get food. If they do not, they go hungry. But even-
tually their need for food forces them to work.
(Food there is like the food in our world, except that there it has a spir-
itual origin. The Lord gives food from heaven to all according to the useful
things they do. None is given to idle people, because they are useless.)
[ 8 ] ( 8 ) After some time they get tired of working, so they leave the
shelters. Those of them who were priests get the urge to build something.
Immediately there appear heaps of hewn stones, bricks, and boards of
various sizes, as well as piles of rushes, reeds, clay, plaster, and tar.
When they catch sight of these materials, they feel a burning desire
to begin construction. They start constructing a building by taking a
stone, then a piece of wood, then a reed, then some mortar, and they put
one thing on top of another in no order, although in their sight it seems
orderly. The things they build by day fall down overnight, so the next day
they pick materials out of the fallen rubble and start building again. They
keep doing this until they get completely tired of building.
(This happens because of a correspondence with the fact that they
had piled passages from the Word together to support false beliefs. These
false beliefs build the church in exactly the way just described.)
[ 9 ] ( 9 ) Afterward, feeling bored, they leave and sit idle and alone.
Because, as I just mentioned, idle people get no food from heaven, they
begin to starve and cannot think about anything else except how they are
going to get food and satisfy their hunger.
When they are in this state, people come along, so they beg for a lit-
tle money from the people. The people say, “Why are you sitting idly
like this? Come with us to our homes. We’ll give you work to do and
we’ll feed you.” So they happily get up and go off to the people’s homes.
There they are given their own jobs to do and are given food in exchange
for their work. The problem is that all people who have become adamant
about false beliefs are unable to do work that is good and useful. They
§281 sacred scripture 349