5039. When that knife and scissors were exhibited from a higher place, the better sort were separated from the evil, by angels from the Lord; the better ones, also, departed from the city; and then that great city, thus compounded, sank down: its midst, deeply; and the rest of the great city sank down, nearly like when water descends, vertically, through an orifice. When they sank down, the houses were first overthrown; and then they began to build the city anew there, but this time in another order, of which mention is made elsewhere.* The order is, that the worst sort are in the middle and those who are not so evil in the circumferences. But of what nature the arrangement is, cannot be known to those who are there, but [only] by angels from the Lord; for it occurs according to all the variety of their evil, and consequently false, nature. * See no. 5034, above.