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Consider now for yourself how much fruit of ungodliness a grain of evil seed has produced.
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When heads of grain without number are sown, how great a threshing floor they will fill!"
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Then I answered and said, "How long? When will these things be? Why are our years few and evil?"
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He answered me and said, "Do not be in a greater hurry than the Most High. You, indeed, are in a hurry for yourself, but the Highest is in a hurry on behalf of many.
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Did not the souls of the righteous in their chambers ask about these matters, saying, "How long are we to remain here? And when will the harvest of our reward come?'
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And the archangel Jeremiel answered and said, "When the number of those like yourselves is completed; for he has weighed the age in the balance,
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and measured the times by measure, and numbered the times by number; and he will not move or arouse them until that measure is fulfilled.' "
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Then I answered and said, "But, O sovereign Lord, all of us also are full of ungodliness.
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It is perhaps on account of us that the time of threshing is delayed for the righteous—on account of the sins of those who inhabit the earth."
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He answered me and said, "Go and ask a pregnant woman whether, when her nine months have been completed, her womb can keep the fetus within her any longer."
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And I said, "No, lord, it cannot." He said to me, "In Hades the chambers of the souls are like the womb.