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Even when they cast themselves a metal calf, saying of it, "This is your god that brought you up from Egypt,"and committing other gross provocations;
19
still, you, in your great compassion, did not abandon them in the desert. The column of cloud did not leave them by day; it kept leading them along the way. By night the column of fire kept showing them light and the path to take.
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You also gave your good Spirit to teach them, did not withhold man from their mouths and provided them water to quench their thirst. 1142
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Yes, forty years you sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing -their clothes did not wear out; their feet did not swell up.
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"'You gave them kingdoms and peoples; you even gave them extra land, so that they took possession of the land of Sichon, also the land of the king of Heshbon and the land of 'Og king of Bashan.
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You made their children as numerous as the countless stars in the sky. "'Then you brought them into the land about which you had said to their fathers that they should go in and take possession of it.
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So the children went in and possessed the land, as you subdued ahead of them the Kena'ani living in the land, and handed them over to them, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, for them to do with as they wished.
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They took fortified cities and fertile land, possessed houses full of all kinds of good things, dug-out cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, fruit trees in plenty; so they ate their fill and grew robust, luxuriating in your great goodness.
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"'Yet they disobeyed and rebelled against you, throwing your Torah behind their backs. They killed your prophets for warning them that they should return to you and committed other gross provocations.
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So you handed them over to the power of their adversaries, who oppressed them. Yet in the time of their trouble, when they cried out to you, you heard from heaven, and in keeping with your great compassion, you gave them saviors to save them from the power of their adversaries.
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But as soon as they had gotten some relief, they went back to do evil before you. So you left them in the power of their enemies, who came down hard on them. Yet when they returned and cried out to you, you heard from heaven many times and saved them, according to your compassion.