AC 7155 - despair

AC 7155
. . . "they saw that they were in evil" (Exodus 5:19)
is signified that they perceived themselves
to be near damnation.
For as those who are in despair
suppose that they can no longer endure the assaults,
they think that they must needs deliver themselves up
as captives to falsities,
such being the state of despair;
but then they begin to be relieved,
and to be as it were led 
out of thick darkness into light.