8285. 'It eats them up like stubble' means consequent devastation and damnation, for which they themselves are responsible. This is clear from the meaning of 'eating up' as consuming, and in the spiritual sense as devastating and damning, the consumption of those immersed in evil being devastation and damnation. For then they are not influenced by any truth at all but are steeped in utter falsities arising from evil, as a consequence of which they no longer have any spiritual life. The expression 'like stubble' is used because complete vastation, that is devastation, is meant.