“Punishments in the world of spirits are manifold, nor is any respect had to person, whether he had been in the world a king or a servant. Every evil brings with itself punishment, the two making one; whoever therefore is in evil, is also in the punishment of evil. But still no one in the other world suffers punishment on account of the evils which he had done in this world, but on account of the evils which he then does. Yet it amounts to the same, and is the same thing, whether it be said that men suffer punishment on account of their evils in the world, or that they suffer punishment on account of the evils which they do in the other life, inasmuch as every one after death returns into his own life, and thus into similar evils, his nature remaining the same as it had been in the life of the body. That they are punished, is because the fear of punishment is the only means of subduing evils in this state.”

— The Divine Revelation of the New Jerusalem, by Emanuel