452. And out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone, signifies that in their thoughts and discourses, viewed interiorly, there is nothing, and from them there proceeds nothing but the love of self and of the world, which is the proprium of the will, the pride of one's own intelligence, which is the proprium of the understanding, and the lusts of evil and falsity, which is the general proprium flowing forth from those two. "Out of their mouths" means out of their thoughts and discourses; by "fire" is signified the love of self and of the world, which love is the proprium of man's will (n. 450, 468, 494); by "smoke" is signified the pride of one's own intelligence, which is the proprium of his understanding, going forth from the love of self and of the world, as smoke does from fire (n. 422); and by "brimstone" is signified the lusts of evil and falsity, which is the general proprium flowing from those two. These things, however, do not appear from their discourses before men in the world, but manifestly before the angels in heaven; therefore it is said, that, when viewed interiorly, they are such. "Fire" signifies infernal love, and "brimstone," the lusts flowing from that love through the pride of one's own intelligence, in the following passages:
I will make it rain fire and brimstone upon him (Ezek. 38:22). Jehovah will rain upon the wicked fire and brimstone (Ps. 11:6). The day of the vengeance of Jehovah; the streams shall be turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone; the smoke of it shall go up forever (Isa. 34:8-10). In the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven: so shall it be in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed (Luke 17:29-30; Gen. 19:24). He that adoreth the beast and his image shall be tormented with fire and brimstone (Rev. 14:9-10). The beast, the false prophet, and the devil were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 19:20; 20:10; 21:8). The breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle the pile (Isa. 30:33). The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it shall not be sown, it shall not spring forth, according to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah (Deut. 29:23). Brimstone shall be scattered upon the habitation of the wicked (Job 18:15).
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