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"O sovereign Lord, didst thou not speak at the beginning when thou didst form the earth -- and that without help -- and didst command the dust
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and it gave thee Adam, a lifeless body? Yet he was the workmanship of thy hands, and thou didst breathe into him the breath of life, and he was made alive in thy presence.
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And thou didst lead him into the garden which thy right hand had planted before the earth appeared.
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And thou didst lay upon him one commandment of thine; but he transgressed it, and immediately thou didst appoint death for him and for his descendants. From him there sprang nations and tribes, peoples and clans without number.
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And every nation walked after its own will and did ungodly things before thee and scorned thee, and thou didst not hinder them.
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But again, in its time thou didst bring the flood upon the inhabitants of the world and destroy them.
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And the same fate befell them: as death came upon Adam, so the flood upon them.
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But thou didst leave one of them, Noah with his household, and all the righteous who have descended from him.
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"When those who dwelt on earth began to multiply, they produced children and peoples and many nations, and again they began to be more ungodly than were their ancestors.
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And when they were committing iniquity before thee, thou didst choose for thyself one of them, whose name was Abraham;
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and thou didst love him, and to him only didst thou reveal the end of the times, secretly by night.