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if they are defeated they shall suffer what you have said, but if they are victorious they shall receive what I have said.[ai]
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For this is the way of which Moses, while he was alive, spoke to the people, saying, ‘Choose life for yourself, so that you may live!’
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But they did not believe him or the prophets after him, or even myself who have spoken to them.
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Therefore there shall not be[aj] grief at their destruction, so much as joy over those to whom salvation is assured.”
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I answered and said, “I know, O Lord, that the Most High is now called merciful, because he has mercy on those who have not yet come into the world;
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and gracious, because he is gracious to those who turn in repentance to his law;
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and patient, because he shows patience toward those who have sinned, since they are his own creatures;
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and bountiful, because he would rather give than take away;[ak]
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and abundant in compassion, because he makes his compassions abound more and more to those now living and to those who are gone and to those yet to come—
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for if he did not make them abound, the world with those who inhabit it would not have life—
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and he is called the giver, because if he did not give out of his goodness so that those who have committed iniquities might be relieved of them, not one ten-thousandth of humankind could have life;