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Are not the evils which have befallen us sufficient?
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Therefore if you forsake us, how much better it would have been for us if we also had been consumed in the burning of Zion!
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For we are no better than those who died there." And they wept with a loud voice. Then I answered them and said,
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"Take courage, O Israel; and do not be sorrowful, O house of Jacob;
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for the Most High has you in remembrance, and the Mighty One has not forgotten you in your struggle.
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As for me, I have neither forsaken you nor withdrawn from you; but I have come to this place to pray on account of the desolation of Zion, and to seek mercy on account of the humiliation of our sanctuary.
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Now go, every one of you to his house, and after these days I will come to you."
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So the people went into the city, as I told them to do.
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But I sat in the field seven days, as the angel had commanded me; and I ate only of the flowers of the field, and my food was of plants during those days.