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Or that a paradise shall be revealed, whose fruit remains unspoiled and in which are abundance and healing, but we shall not enter it
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because we have lived in perverse ways?[ah]
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Or that the faces of those who practiced self-control shall shine more than the stars, but our faces shall be blacker than darkness?
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For while we lived and committed iniquity we did not consider what we should suffer after death.”
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He answered and said, “This is the significance of the contest that all who are born on earth shall wage:
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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;