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"Yet thou didst not take away from them their evil heart, so that thy law might bring forth fruit in them.
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For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him.
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Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the people's heart along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained.
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So the times passed and the years were completed, and thou didst raise up for thyself a servant, named David.
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And thou didst command him to build a city for thy name, and in it to offer thee oblations from what is thine.
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This was done for many years; but the inhabitants of the city transgressed,
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in everything doing as Adam and all his descendants had done, for they also had the evil heart.
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So thou didst deliver the city into the hands of thy enemies.
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"Then I said in my heart, Are the deeds of those who inhabit Babylon any better? Is that why she has gained dominion over Zion?
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For when I came here I saw ungodly deeds without number, and my soul has seen many sinners during these thirty years. And my heart failed me,
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for I have seen how thou dost endure those who sin, and hast spared those who act wickedly, and hast destroyed thy people, and hast preserved thy enemies,