superficially polished and beautifully colored, which are offered for sale
as precious stones. Briefly put, these good deeds would be like the eggs of
an owl mistaken for the eggs of a dove.
[ 3 ] It is important to know that the good things people accomplish
with the body come from the spirit or the inner self. The inner self is
their spirit, which lives after death. Therefore when [evil] people cast
away the body that formed their outer self, they are made up of nothing
but their own evils. They enjoy these evils and steer away from goodness
as a threat to the way they live.
[ 4 ] The Lord teaches in many passages that we cannot do good
things that are intrinsically good before evil has been removed from us:
Do people gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? A rot-
ten tree cannot produce good fruit. (Matthew 7 : 16 , 17 , 18 )
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. You clean the outside of the cup and
the plate, but the insides are full of plundering and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, so that
the outside may become clean as well. (Matthew 23 : 25 , 26 )And in Isaiah,
Wash yourselves. Remove the evil of your actions. Stop doing evil.
Learn to do what is good; seek [good] judgment. Then if your sins had
been like scarlet, they will become as white as snow. If they had been
red as crimson, they will be like wool. (Isaiah 1 : 16 , 17 , 18 )
This point can be illustrated further by analogies: Suppose someone 436
keeps a leopard and a panther in an apartment and, as the one who
feeds them, is able to live safely with them. No one else can visit unless
their owner first removes these wild animals. Guests invited to the table
of the king and queen would not forget to wash their faces and hands
before attending. Anyone must first purify ore with fire and remove
slag before getting pure gold or silver. Everyone separates the tares or
weeds from the harvested wheat before taking it into the barn. Everyone
cooks some of the juice out of raw meat before it becomes edible and is
set on the table. Everyone knocks the grubs and caterpillars off the
leaves of a tree in the garden to prevent them from devouring the leaves
and causing a loss of fruit. Does any man love a young woman and pro-
pose to marry her if she is riddled with malignancies or covered all over
with pustules and varicose veins, no matter how much she puts makeup
§436 goodwill & good actions 523