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Thirty years after the fall of Jerusalem, I, Shealtiel (also known as Ezra), was in Babylon. I was lying on my bed, troubled and disturbed,
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as I thought about the ruins of Jerusalem and the prosperity of those who lived in Babylon.
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I was deeply disturbed and began to express my fears to God Most High.
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"O Lord and Master," I said, "you, and you alone, spoke the word at the beginning of creation and formed the world. At your command the dust
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produced the lifeless body of Adam. Then with your hands you shaped it, you breathed into it the breath of life, and he began to live.
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You brought him into the Garden of Eden, which you yourself had planted before the earth was made.
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You gave him just one commandment, but he disobeyed it, and you immediately made him and his descendants subject to death.
2 "From Adam were born more nations, tribes, clans, and families than can be counted.
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All the nations did whatever they wished; they sinned against you and rejected your commands. But you did nothing to stop them.
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Then again, after a while, you brought on the flood and destroyed the world's population.
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They all suffered the same fate: as death had come to Adam, so now death came to a whole generation in the flood.