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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;
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and patient, because he shows patience toward those who have sinned, since they are his own creatures;
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and bountiful, because he would rather give than take away;[ak]
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and abundant in compassion, because he makes his compassions abound more and more to those now living and to those who are gone and to those yet to come—
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for if he did not make them abound, the world with those who inhabit it would not have life—