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Thursday, August 29, 2024

A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 92

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 92

“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)

The False Filter

The Biblical Filter

The word OR the Word

The Word THROUGH the word

   Chapter 20 – Outro: Too Good to be True?

   I’m going to begin with a list of things I am excited about:

1.     I am so excited to be in the last chapter of the book!

2.    I am so excited that it is a short chapter!

3.    And I am elated with how God spoke to me this morning through his word to (once again) give me the exact message that is needed for this final leg of BJ’s garden path!

   First, the essence of BJ’s closing chapter is to tell us once again what it sounds like when you first misrepresent the attributes of God, then misrepresent the Scriptures about those attributes, and then present “another Jesus” who can’t be found IN Scripture, talking about him like he is found outside Scripture, and then explaining away everything God said about himself by telling people anything we don’t like in the Bible is “figurative” and Jesus isn’t like that.

   Second, because BJ is continuing the serpent’s question from the garden, “Did God actually say…?”, it grieves me to see correspondence between Brad and people who could see the flaws in his teaching. While they point out what God’s word says, they somehow believe Brad is an authority who can tell them that what they can plainly read for themselves is nothing more than figurative language that, even when it is specifically talking about God, really is only describing us poor humble sinners. And people are falling for it!!!

   Third, I was shocked to discover that BJ has actually succeeded in publishing a TRILOGY of books with the same admission that he is changing God, the word, and the Way, and people are paying for him to do it! I’ll see what I need to address directly before sharing how God ministered to me this morning with the exact thing everyone needs to hear alongside the garden path of this closing chapter.

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“‘wrath’ (orge) is a metaphor for the self-inflicted consequences of defying God’” (p. 273).

Bogus.

When the grammar clearly speaks of “the wrath OF God”, it means it is his. It is actively his, not some passive thing that happens to us when we’re naughty.

There are far too many examples of a historical nature showing God pouring out his wrath on sinners to write this off as a metaphor. God has deliberately woven his word with generation after generation of examples of his wrath, prophecies about his wrath, teachings about his wrath, so BJ is lying to claim a metaphor where God himself presents this as an attribute of the divine nature. And that means that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have the same attribute of wrath as the Father and are as fully engaged in expressing that wrath as is the Father.

   Here are some questions for anyone who still believes Brad instead of the Bible.

1.     What “authority” has Brad used to convince you to reject the authority of the Bible in what it describes of God’s wrath (I’m only referring to this attribute because it is the one BJ is talking about)?

2.    What have you done with all the examples I have shared of looking at the cherry-picked partial-Scriptures BJ has presented in context and finding that none of them support his claims? In fact, I think most of them totally contradicted his claims!

3.    What have you done with the discovery that there is not one reference in the New Testament of Jesus or the apostles correcting ANYTHING from the Hebrew Scriptures, but they quote them as Scripture? (Note: the one time BJ claimed Jesus was correcting Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures was false. In the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus said, “You have heard it said… but I say to you…” he was clearly describing the difference between the righteousness of the religious elite in contrast to the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven. Not one of the examples was a correction to Scripture, but only to what the people were being taught from Scripture by the religious elite).

4.    What have you done with the discovery that the book of Hebrews tells us the kinds of things from the Scriptures Jesus would have explained to the two men on the Road to Emmaus, and none of them support BJ’s view that any of it was allegorical, or that Jesus did not die as a substitute sacrifice who made atonement for our sins?

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“So then, in what sense is the wrath ‘of God’? The church fathers say, ‘Only figuratively’” (p. 273).

False.

The Bible says that the wrath “of God” means the wrath belonging to God. It is simple. BJ wants you to think it is complicated.

And BJ did not show that the “church fathers” unanimously said that God’s wrath was “only figurative”. Neither did he show that there was even a consensus on the matter. And he cherry-picked Origen who was known to be loosey-goosey in his handling of Scripture. Beyond that, I simply haven’t the time to check out the ones he claimed as authorities, nor to find out what all the others claimed.

Conclusion: it is enough that the Scriptures from beginning to end speak of God’s wrath as real (even in the allegorical illustrations of that wrath).

   Note: This reasoning that when dealing with what might be considered a “negative” attribute of God, the “of God” part doesn’t mean of God, what do we do when we read of the love “of God”? Is this also figurative? Does God not have love as an attribute? And if he does, how could “of God” with wrath not also mean it is “of God”? 

   This is the illogical reasoning that flows through this book that is duping people to give up the plain reasoning of Scripture, and the unanimous testimony of the whole Bible, that God’s wrath is as real as his love, his judgment is friends with his mercy, and he relates to different people differently based on how differently they relate to him!

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

That the prodigal son parable presents the “pigpen” consequences as simply the natural outflow of the young man’s choices as if this proves that is the case with “the wrath of God” (p. 274).

IT'S… A… PARABLE!!!!!!!

Its focus is on how God feels about the prostitutes, tax-collectors, and other sinners coming into the kingdom. It is NOT a treatise on the wrath of God, neither is it a statement against it. Rather, we are given a very simple stage on which an arrogant youth goes off to live in sin (as did the prostitutes, tax-collectors, sinners), experienced the consequences, came to his senses, went home, and the spotlight shines on the Father who welcomes him home with joy. This was to tell the religious hypocrites that our Father in heaven was welcoming sinners with joy because they were repenting and coming home. It is NOT a statement on God’s attributes as a whole, but on his joy when sinners repent and come home to him.

   Okay, so BJ’s first explanation for why we deny what Scripture says is that anything we don’t like is figurative. He hasn’t come close to showing where he gets the authority for this that not only trumps all the scholars, pastors, and preachers who hold to the whole counsel of God on the matter, but he definitely has not shown an external authority that authorizes us to treat such clear history, and such clear descriptions of God’s nature, as figurative.

   Now he moves to his second “dynamic” which is a return to “rhetoric” (p. 274).  

Ah, rhetoric, rhetoric, device though thou art,
   How clever your entrance, how devious your part.
   For just when we think we have God understood,
   Along comes rhetoric to confuse us for good!

   (Insert Elvis intonation here) “Thank you, thank you very much!”

   Annn-yyyy-waaayyy!

   BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

That all the texts shared in the correspondence were rhetoric (p. 274).

BJ Bogusness!

His comments prove my contention that if you step back and look at why anyone believes anything BJ claims in his trilogy of deception, it is only because they view BJ as THE authority!

In fact, why someone would present all those verses from THE BIBLE, and then disbelieve all of them? Trilogy answer: because BJ says so!

NO, BJ has NOT made his case that references to the wrath “of God” are rhetorical devices that mean the exact opposite of what is stated.

   Now, sad as it is for me to do this (only because this is taking longer than I anticipated), I am going to present each of the verses BJ presented and we’re going to look for clues that would tell us that the writers of Scripture were indeed using a rhetorical device.

   HOWEVER!!!!!!!

   It is only BJ’s OPINION that if someone used a rhetorical device it would mean the OPPOSITE of what they say. Rhetorical devices are typically used to ILLUSTRATE the same thing as what is being said. 

   For example, parables are not what really is happening, but they tell us the same thing that is happening. The shepherd finding his lost sheep is exactly what was happening with Jesus finding lost people. The woman finding her lost coin is exactly illustrative of Jesus finding lost people. The father finding his lost son was just a parable, but it precisely illustrates the Father’s joy in finding sinners and bringing them home to his kingdom. In other words, figures of speech in the Bible, metaphors and similes, allegories and apocalypse, are all saying the same thing in illustrative form as we are meant to believe is the story in real life. 

   In a sense, the illustrations enhance the literal meaning of a truth with their figurative descriptions that help us understand it more clearly! You know, the way harmony isn't playing the exact notes of the melody but helps us tune to the melody all the more easily.

   Therefore, before looking at these Scriptures, two things must be understood. First, there must be evidence that there is some kind of rhetorical language being used that is non-literal. Don’t forget, rhetorical language is about the way to organize a message to persuade others, it does NOT necessitate that any part of it is non-literal, figurative, allegorical, or any of BJ’s claims. Rhetorical just means it is a strategic way of organizing thoughts to lead people to believe the conclusion. BJ has used rhetorical speech galore to convince people of his “another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel”, but any rhetorical speech in the Bible (and I’m not saying it is certain if or where it is) would still be telling the truth about whatever topic it is addressing.

   Second, there must also be some evidence that a rhetorical device indicates that something is the opposite of what the words say. If God’s word says that God’s word is breathed out by God, and BJ says that those words can be twisted back to front, where in the world is the authority for us to believe BJ instead of the words of men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down what they were given to say in the genius of an intimate fellowship between them and the Holy Spirit that affirms the glory of God in breathing out his words into Scripture!

   So, with the onus on BJ to prove that the breathed-out words of God do not mean what is plainly stated, let’s take a jaunt down this wonderful viewpoint of God’s word, and see if we can wrestle it off of BJ’s garden path and back onto the narrow way. Metaphorically speaking, I mean (but still literally for real 😊).

   Okay, I think I blew it here. I had this silly idea that I should type “of God” into my www.biblegateway search bar and see how many times that exact pairing of words came up. Guess what?! "Of God" comes up Eight… Hundred… and… Seventeen… Times!!!

   Conclusion: I do NOT have time to assess how many speak of things so objectively belonging to God that they can’t possibly refer to non-literal figurative language. Sigh.

   Which means we will have to just look at these eight and see if BJ can convince us that these are figures of speech, or rhetorical devices, or non-literal, or somehow talking about us when they say they are talking about God. You know, slight-of-hand-and-mind stuff.

   However, please let me remind you that when BJ speaks of God’s wrath, he is misrepresenting it in a strawman god-in-man’s-image kind of way, and then representing his counter to this strawman in a totally god-of-rhetoric-and-allegory who doesn’t even add up.

   CLARIFICATION: I am NOT ascribing to EITHER of BJ’s pendulum-extreme misrepresentations!

BJ’s Literal Sense

The Historical-Grammatical Sense

BJ’s Literalism

A god-of-rhetoric-and-allegory-who-doesn’t-even-add-up.

 

A god-in-man’s-image-who-is-just-as-trigger-happy-angry-as-too-many-fathers.

   I am seeking the plumbline of “truth in love”, trusting the breathed-out words of God, living by every word that comes from the mouth of God, with my best and most sincere effort to be true to what God says in his word, avoiding anything I might tend to read in (including that things are figurative when they are not).  

BJ’s Literal Sense

The Historical-Grammatical Sense

BJ’s Literalism

A god-of-rhetoric-and-allegory-who-doesn’t-even-add-up.

Taking what the words mean in the context they are presented and tested by anything else in God’s word that helps us understand what God said and what he meant.

A god-in-man’s-image-who-is-just-as-trigger-happy-angry-as-too-many-fathers.

   In other words, when I am defending a biblical view of “wrath” and all its synonyms, I’m NOT endorsing the other extreme of BJ’s extreme. I’m calling everyone to sit down with God’s word and humbly seek to know the mind of Christ as it is IN Scripture, not as we are told it is by someone OUTSIDE of Scripture.

Scripture

Conclusion

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36)

First question: what did the Jews understand by “the wrath of God” since Jesus is speaking in their culture and understanding?

I will just summarize that I have given ample evidence from the Old Testament that the judgment, wrath, anger, fury, and indignation of God were all woven into real-life events of history that were not only told in their initial expressions, but were retold in exhortations and rebukes, even in songs, so people would be aware that the same things could just as well happen to them as what happened to others.

Wrath: “wrath n. — a feeling of intense anger that does not subside; often on an epic scale” (BSL).

So far, the word “wrath” is a thing. If we were talking about people, we would understand it as a real thing. For some reason, talking about God, it can’t be a real thing (I mean, Jersakily speaking).

Clue: the rhyming thought about those who believe in Jesus is that they have “eternal life”. That is a real thing. It is called “the gift of God”[1]. That would suggest that if the gift “of God” is really the gift belonging to God and/or coming from God, that the wrath “of God” would be the wrath belonging to God and/or coming from God.

CONCLUSION: nothing in this text or context suggests that God’s wrath is “non-literal” when his “eternal life” is real. BJ is BSing, and how I wish whoever wrote him that letter would return to their first love and humble themselves under God’s mighty hand in Scripture so they can be lifted up to delight in every word that comes from the mouth of God!

but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:8)

The persons in question are those who “obey unrighteousness”. This is in contrast to those who “obey the truth”.

This says that the “obey unrighteousness” people are destined for “wrath and fury”. It says that.

Wrath: “wrath (punishment) n. — the punitive outworking of God’s righteous indignation at sin; perhaps describing an anger long-building” (BSL)

Fury: “punishment fury n. the punitive outworking of Gods righteous indignation at sin; perhaps describing an anger quickly kindled” (BSL).

Once again, these are real things. If we were talking people, we would have no problem “getting it” that this is someone we would not want to meet in a dark alley because they are describing objectively painful things we would want to avoid. So where is the evidence that this is a rhetorical device that makes it non-literal?

Clue: once again, the “wrath” rhymes with “eternal life”. So, is eternal life real or non-literal? If it is real and literal, then so is the wrath. We’re not cherry-pickers here.

CONCLUSION: because Paul talked about “the day of wrath when GOD’s righteous judgment will be revealed” a few verses earlier, and he speaks of the “tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil” right after, the context cries out to take this as a serious and real warning of the very real judgment for the wicked that will match the very real blessedness for the saints. And BJ’s determination to convince people this is not real has no authority over any of us.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:6)

Wow! This is talking about BJ!

Dear people, Paul is telling us not to let people like BJ deceive us with their “empty words”! How do I know BJ is using empty words? Because whenever he claimed a Scripture supported his view, I went and looked up the Scripture and found that it either did not support his view or outrightly contradicted it. His words were empty because they never added up to what the words claimed. 

And, when I listened to all his rationales for believing what he said, he simply quoted people from the past who were not apostles are prophets of our Lord Jesus Christ, and were only giving their opinions about Scripture as BJ is.

So, yes, BJ’s EMPTY WORDS!

Now look at this: Wrath means, “wrath (punishment) n. — the punitive outworking of God’s righteous indignation at sin; perhaps describing an anger long-building” (BSL). (I’m almost trembling with how this stands out!). We have in the left column the breathed-out words of God. Serious business. FULL words. Every word breathed out by God. Each word written down by a man carried along by the Holy Spirit. Can you feel it? Can you feel how FULL that is?

And then I read in BJ’s book how he explains these words away and I’m left with “empty words”. Like really. I’m looking around the pages to find out why I should believe him and I can’t find anything. The pages are empty of authority. They are empty of reason. Even the most clever of his rhetorical devices can’t persuade me to believe what he says because the words are empty. They are as empty as the serpent’s “Did God actually say…?” that were also full of the bitter poison of idolatry as hearts were persuaded away from the only true God for idols and gods in the image of man.

CONCLUSION: not only does this NOT sound non-literal in any way, but it exposes BJ’s “empty words” along with an apostolic exhortation to “let NO ONE deceive you”, and BJ is a “NO ONE” trying to DECEIVE YOU! Don’t… let… it… happen!!!!!!!

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. (Colossians 3:5-6)

Question: if the “on account of these” are all real, literal things, why would “the wrath of God is coming” be non-literal? Where do these amazing rhetorical devices squeeze into just half-sentences?

Wrath means, “wrath (punishment) n. — the punitive outworking of God’s righteous indignation at sin; perhaps describing an anger long-building” (BSL).

Question: if even something like “covetousness” is listed as “idolatry”, and every instance of idolatry in the Hebrew Scriptures received literal expressions of God’s wrath, hot anger, judgment, and indignation, why would an apostle use the same terminology as people were familiar with from the Scriptures and mean something opposite to the words God breathed out?

I mean, don’t forget that the apostles preached “the word of God” as a mix of what the Hebrew Scriptures said about the Christ (Hebrews shows us what that would have sounded/looked like) plus their application of those Scriptures to “the gospel of the kingdom” of our Lord Jesus Christ. So where do the apostles say that what they quote from the Scriptures was as real as everyone understood, but speaking of the day of wrath to come is not only non-literal, but somehow means the opposite of what the words say?

CONCLUSION: the sins Paul tells us to put to death are real sins. Literally. The things he tells us to “put them all away” immediately after include “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk”, all of which are real and literal. If we continue into the positive qualities we are to “put on then” (vs 12ff), they are also real and literal. There is absolutely no reason to pull “wrath” out of the puzzle picture and say IT is so rhetorically figurative that it doesn’t mean what it means like EVERY OTHER WORD IN THE CONTEXT DOES!!! More of BJ’s BSin’. I mean… “empty wordin’”!

by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last! (1 Thessalonians 2:16)

Once again, wrath is, “wrath (punishment) n. — the punitive outworking of God’s righteous indignation at sin; perhaps describing an anger long-building” (BSL).

The context again shows one real and literal expression after another. Paul really thanked God. The Thessalonians really received the “word OF God”. The believers literally became “imitators of the church of God in Christ Jesus in Judea”. And, what Paul is getting to now, the believers literally “suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews”. The Jews literally “killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets”. They literally “drove us out”. They literally “displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved”. They are literally filling up “the measure of their sins”.

CONCLUSION: the “wrath” is as real as the wrath that had already come on criminal nations and idolatrous children all through the Hebrew Scriptures with not one hint those were allegorical descriptions! And it is as real as every other part of the context surrounding the word “wrath”!

where your fathers put me to the test

    and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;

    they have not known my ways.’

As I swore in my wrath,

    ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” (Hebrews 3:9-11)

Okay, this makes me smile because we are now in the book of Hebrews which tells us what Jesus said to the two men on the road to Emmaus. Yes, Hebrews shows how the Hebrew Scriptures tell us the whole story of Jesus Christ!

This one is almost too easy.

First, it is speaking of an event from the past. So, did God swear in his wrath that a generation of his people would never enter his rest? Yes, he did swear that. Did those people ever enter his rest? No, they did not, even when they again defied Yahweh and tried to enter without him. So if Yahweh swearing an oath was literally what he did, and them not entering his rest (the Promised Land) really, literally happened as described, where do we get a rhetorical device (apparently in use at the time of the first century authors of Scripture but exactly parallel to what God said hundreds of years earlier?) that pops “wrath” completely out of the context and makes it non-literal? I mean, if you can’t trust God to mean “wrath” when HE says “I swore in MY wrath”, who can you believe? Oh I know, Brad Jersak! The man whose words trump God’s words! Yikes!!!

CONCLUSION: could I just note a clue about how bogus BJ’s philosophy is? In the context just prior to this quote regarding “wrath”, the author of Hebrews said, “Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later” (vs 5). Guess what that says about everything the Hebrew Scriptures had recorded about Moses, including that the Jews understood the first five books of the Bible to be “the books of Moses”? It means NO God/Human HYBRID!!! The way we are to see what is written is that it is a picture of Moses being faithful to his calling, for real, literally.

Once again, the history being spoken of is literal and real, and the application immediately following this quote from the Hebrew Scriptures is a literal and real exhortation to do literal and real things in literal and real obedient faith. And the word “wrath” is just as real and literal as all the rest, and God says it is “MY wrath” denouncing BJ’s claim that it could not be his.

For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

“As I swore in my wrath,

‘They shall not enter my rest,’”

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. (Hebrews 4:3)

I can so see why BJ needs to convince his readers that the Old Testament is allegorical! Its history absolutely refutes everything BJ claims!

Once again, we have God telling the history of his people in literal terms. I will let you read the context to see how many things you could list as literal and real and how not even one comes up as figurative.

Paul is using a literal and real history of how that previous generation missed out on the Promised Land as a warning to the believers to “let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it (“the promise of enter his rest”)”.

CONCLUSION: Because this text repeats what was stated in the previous verse, I think enough is said that this is all real and literal, not the least bit allegorical, figurative, or non-literal.

The nations raged,

    but your wrath came,

    and the time for the dead to be judged,

and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,

    and those who fear your name,

    both small and great,

and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.” (Revelation 11:18)

First, “the nations raged” is real and literal. Raged means, “to be angry v. — to be or become angry and feel aversion and antipathy for something” (BSL).

Second, “but your wrath came” is also a real and literal description of what God did in response to the raging nations.

NOTE: the “YOUR wrath” is synonymous with “wrath OF God”. It means what it says because it says what it means. The wrath is the same as has been repeated in previous verses. It IS wrath, and it is GOD’s wrath.

Will the “dead” be literally “judged”? Yes, absolutely. Judged means, “to be judged (state) v. — to be or become brought to account for ones actions and sentenced accordingly, often in a courthouse setting and before a judge” (BSL).

Will God’s “servants, the prophets and saints” literally be “rewarded”? Yes, absolutely. Rewarded means, “to grant a request v. — to allow someone to have what the person has requested” plus “recompense wage n. a payment for worthy acts or retribution for wrongdoing; understood as a tangible wage” (BSL).

Are there literally “destroyers of the earth”? Yes, of course. Detroyers means, “to destroy (damage) v. — to destroy completely; damage irreparably” (BSL). Will God literally “destroy” them? Yes, he will “to destroy (damage) v. — to destroy completely; damage irreparably”.

CONCLUSION: even in the apocalyptic language of Revelation, there is literally coming the time when the dead will be judged and Jesus’ servants rewarded. For real. Literally. It is our certain hope.

   My concluding conclusion is that BJ is the false teacher Jesus and the apostles warned us about. The only reason we would not take Scripture to mean what it says is that BJ found something in his own preferences, and in other people throughout history who held his same opinion, and he gathered all this info together in a trilogy of books that fulfill Scripture. Yes, did you know that?

   Paul spoke of BJ as one who is “like so many, peddlers of God's word” (II Corinthians 2:17). BJ fits the description of “evil people and impostors” who “will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:13). BJ also fulfills Jesus’ words, “many false prophets will arise and lead many astray” (Matthew 24:11).

   Now, because I took the detour through God’s word to show that not one of the eight verses BJ presented actually supports his allegorical/figurative/non-literal view, but they are a glaring rebuke to his claims instead, I did not get to the really exciting way God prepared me for this chapter. So, I will set up camp for another night, get a good night’s rest, and see if the delay in completing that sharing will add more puzzle pieces to the mix as I begin tomorrow morning in the Word, the word, and the Spirit of God.

 

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com

Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.

Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems 



[1] John 4:10; Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8

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