- BETH EL IS THE CORRECT SITE FOR ISRAEL'S NEXT TEMPLE
-
- (Appendix A, An Eight Part Peace Proposal for Greater
Jerusalem)
-
- The author of An Eight Part Peace Proposal for Greater
Jerusalem notes that the tense situation along the Temple Mount in Jerusalem
is a constant reminder of the urgent need for peace through better understanding
rather than peace through sheer strength.
-
- Ignorance of the Bible is behind the fevered notion of
blowing up the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque and then putting
in their place the next Jewish temple simply because the Temple Mount is
truly the historic place where the first two temples were located.
-
- Furthermore, the frequently repeated assertion that the
Temple Mount with its Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, is the holiest place
in Judaism is absolutely untrue. Nowhere in Torah (also called the Pentateuch,
or the first five books of the Bible) is there any mention of Jerusalem
let alone a temple anywhere in Jerusalem. And to a Jew, the Torah is God's
law and blueprint for all mankind's peaceful existence.
-
- Only the plain truth can set us free: Israel's next temple
belongs between Beth El and Hai, about 10 miles north of the old city of
Jerusalem. This is where Abraham first called upon the Lord and made an
altar to Him. (Genesis 12:8) And this is the place that Jacob later called
"the house of God" and "the gate of heaven." (Genesis
28:17) This is also where the Almighty subsequently told Jacob that "Israel
shall be thy name." (Genesis 35:10) Indeed, the Torah tells us this
place called Beth El has been endued with a spiritual significance so sublime
that it is beyond compare!
-
- On the other hand, the story of how David came upon and
bought the Temple Mount site in Jerusalem is from the Book of Chronicles,
which, strictly speaking, is not a book of the Torah and therefore has
less authority than a book of the Torah such as the Book of Genesis.
-
- Note well that it was not until after the ancient Israelites
had rejected the Almighty Himself as their King (I Samuel 8) and had set
a man (Saul) to be king over themselves that their jealous Lord by and
by put the idea of a temple into the head of Saul's successor, King David.
(I Chronicles 17) Shortly afterwards, David's diabolical decision to take
a census of the Israelites - a people foretold in Genesis to be numberless
like the stars in the sky or the sands of the sea or the dust of the earth
- again provoked the Almighty's long-lasting wrath.
-
- Thus it was the Almighty's wrath that ultimately led
David to the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite and it was the Almighty's
wrath that caused David to buy this land for a temple site (I Chronicles
21), where his son Solomon was later to build the first temple. The discovery
by David of the Temple Mount site, previously known as the threshing floor
of Ornan the Jebusite, was part of the enactment of divine retribution
against David and the Israelites.
-
- This is an amazing but true fact recorded in Scripture.
-
- Moreover, the entire chain of events that led David to
this place, known then as the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite but
now known as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, was the direct result of a
choice made by David at the behest of the prophet Gad (I Chronicles 21:11-13);
this circumstance is not in accord with the positive command in Deuteronomy
12:5, to seek the habitation of the Almighty, a "place which the Lord
your God shall choose."
-
- Biblical scholars are naturally inclined to be skeptical
about the future Beth El temple-site - if indeed they are aware of it at
all - because they are conditioned to believe that the Temple Mount sitein
Jerusalem is theologically as well as historically or archaeologically
axiomatic and any attempt to gainsay such conventional wisdom must be the
work of a crackpot, an eccentric or even Satan himself; indeed, they point
to II Chronicles 7:1, the dedication of Solomon's temple, to clinch their
point about the Temple Mount site:
-
- Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire
came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices;
and the glory of the Lord filled the house.
-
- Moreover, II Chronicles 7:12 is even more explicit:
-
- And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto
him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for
an house of sacrifice.
-
- However, a caveat concerning Solomon's temple on the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem is included at the end of the Almighty's covenant
with Solomon (II Chronicles 7:19-22) and it is reproduced here with the
author's own emphasis added in italics:
-
- But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and commandments,
which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship
them; Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have
given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I
cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among
all nations. And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to
every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the Lord done
thus unto this land, and unto this house? And it shall be answered, Because
they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them forth out
of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them,
and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.
-
- History, of course, shows us the doom that was prescribed
not only for the first and second temples in Jerusalem, but also for the
ten-tribed House of Israel which was carried away and made to disappear
by the Assyrians when the first temple was still standing, and for the
House of Judah which the Babylonians carried away but later, by the decree
of the Persian King Cyrus, was allowed to return to Jerusalem and build
the second temple, the remains of which are mistakenly revered by Jews
throughout the world to this day.
-
- It is also important to understand that The Holy Koran
makes clear reference to the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar
in 586 B.C. and of the second temple by Titus in 70 A.D. and the revelation
concludes: "It may be that your Lord may yet show mercy unto you."
(Bani Isra'il, or Sura 17, Ayat 4-8) These words are spoken to the Children
of Israel! If only they would be guided by the Torah and only the Torah
and realize their full potential in Beth-el! Unfortunately, as of the date
of this writing, 7 March 1996, there is still no temple in Beth El, which
still remains the headquarters for the military authority of what is left
of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Are these militant Zionists, whose
"Iron Fist" tactics have been successfully countered by the Palestinians'
intifada, really the descendants of Abraham, by whom "shall all families
of the earth be blessed"? (Genesis 12:3)
-
- Stubborn habits and old traditions die hard. For example,
a Lubavitch Rabbi in New York City, Abraham Stone (770 Eastern Parkway,
Brooklyn, New York 11213), wrote in a newspaper article published by The
Jewish Press of 19 November 1993 (page 64) that the Beth El location cited
above from Genesis 28:17 is in fact the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and that
this scripture proves that the Temple Mount is where the third temple should
be built! Stone acknowledges that this scripture is the authoritative
source giving the right location for the temple, which is quite correct.
But he insists that Beth El is the Temple Mount location in Jerusalem,
which is an assertion that is simply not supported by Scripture! Indeed,
Beth El is cited as early as Genesis 12, as pointed out above, well before
any mention of Jerusalem in the Bible.
-
- Beth El appears again and again in Genesis, whereas Jerusalem
does not appear anywhere in the Torah (or first five books of the Bible)!
In I Kings 12:25- 29, Jerusalem and Beth El are mentioned in the same context
as two different place names, the latter being the place where the rebel
King of Israel set up a golden calf so as to keep his subjects from returning
to worship at the first temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in the
rival Kingdom of Judah. Clearly the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and Beth
El are two different places, and Genesis 28:17 tells us, as even Rabbi
Stone has already affirmed, Beth El is the place that the Almighty chose
for his habitation!
-
- Rabbi Stone took a supercilious tone in a telephone conversation
on this all-important topic of the correct location for Israel's next temple
and did not deign to reply to the author's follow-up letter on the same
subject, in which he made the following additional points beyond those
already expressed in his first letter to the rabbi:
-
- First, David, in Psalm 48:2, seems to give special significance
to the northern reaches of Jerusalem, where Beth El is, when he indited
these words: "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth,
is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King."
A diplomatic approach to this subject may very well be that the greater
metropolitan area of Jerusalem could include Beth El in the final peace
agreement between the Arabs and the Israelis. The spiritual significance
of Jerusalem the city will not be diminished a whit by recognition and
acceptance of Beth El as the next temple site. In this regard it should
also be noted that Ezekiel prophesied there would be among the portions
finally allotted to the twelve tribes one separate portion comprising land
for the sanctuary of the Lord, for the priests of the sanctuary, for "a
profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs," and the
remainder for the prince. (Ezekiel 48:7-22) Inasmuch as this extra portion
contains a sacred place "for the sanctuary of the Lord" as well
as "a profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs,"
it cannot be more clear that the sanctuary is not supposed to be located
inside the city!
-
- Second, Ezekiel, upon beholding from his vantage point
on a high mountain the vision of the future temple, indicates that there
was "as the frame of a city on the south," which must be old
Jerusalem as the center of the new Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 40:2) Isn't it
clear that if Jerusalem appeared just to the south of Ezekiel, then Ezekiel
stood just to the north of Jerusalem? And isn't Beth El located just to
the north of the old city of Jerusalem? Is it only a coincidence that
Ezekiel, in his vision of the future temple, stood in or near Beth El,
the very same place that Jacob called the "House of God and the Gate
of Heaven" after the Almighty had begun to communicate to Jacob in
a dream the spiritual significance of the place?
-
- Rabbi Stone later retreated somewhat from his Beth El
is Mount Moriah or his Beth El is the Temple Mount position when, in
The Jewish Press of 1 December 1995 (page 9), he quoted from Rashi, the
preeminent Biblical commentator who lived in the European diaspora from
1040 to 1105 A.D., that, with reference to the account of Jacob at Beth
El in Genesis 28:17, "Mt. Moriah (the Temple Mount) was uprooted and
was brought to the site where Jacob was lying." Unbeknownst to Moses
himself not to mention modern day geologists and archaeologists, this is
sheer nonsense that only compounds ignorance and promotes confusion on
a truly vital question on which the peace of Jerusalem hinges and must
therefore be totally rejected.
-
- Whereas Jesus did say, "If ye have faith, and doubt
not, ...if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou
cast into the sea; it shall be done" (St. Matthew 21:21), so too is
it true that there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. What a
pity indeed, for a rabbi to turn away from such an important message enshrined
in his very own Scripture! As Jesus said, "Think not that I am come
to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
(St. Matthew 5:17)
-
- That the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is associated with
Divine retribution echoes throughout history. Beyond the aforementioned
destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians and then of the second
by the Romans pursuant to the Almighty's promise of punishment as expressed
in chapter 26 of Leviticus and reiterated in the previously cited caveat
of II Chronicles 7:19-22 right after Solomon's dedication of the first
temple, the Evangelist Matthew (St. Matthew 24:1-2) records that Jesus
Christ himself put a curse on the temple in Jerusalem when, shortly before
his arrest, he looked at the buildings of the temple on the Temple Mount
in Jerusalem and told his apostles:
-
- "See ye not all these things? verily I say unto
you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not
be thrown down." If one were to take Jesus fully at His word as mankind
fast approaches the twenty-first century and bears witness to the ever-unfolding
progress in the technologies of modern warfare, one must acknowledge that
this prophecy of total destruction has not yet been completely fulfilled
despite the best efforts of the Jews and their Roman conquerors under Titus;
for the Western Wall, being part of Herod's refurbishment of the second
temple, was standing when Jesus uttered his malediction against "the
buildings of the temple" and it is still standing today! Can it be
that the remainder of this curse may be causeless and therefore will not
come if there is a change of heart andpeople seek for and go to Beth El,
the habitation of the Almighty that He Himself has chosen?
-
- Centuries later, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem became
the objective point of numerous military expeditions from Europe, which
are known as the Crusades or Holy Crusades; the blood and money and toil
expended for these cruel and crazy and futile ventures can only be viewed
as the product of ignorance combined with misguided fervor or religious
fanaticism. In these dark pages of history, the wrong temple-site became
a most worthy goal of Europe's royalty, nobility and aristocracy, and even
lent its name to the religious military order called the Knights Templars;
thus their acquisition of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem became one of their
justifications for war; indeed, it is noteworthy that even today the putative
heir to the now defunct throne of the Hapsburgs, Otto von Hapsburg, still
styles himself, among many other titles listed in the European edition
of Who's Who, "King of Jerusalem"!
-
- Throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages, ignorance
of the correct site for the next Israelite temple remained pervasive.
But then in the early seventeenth century, there appeared a glimmer of
truth and of hope. John Milton, in his Paradise Lost (Book I, 400-405),
clearly indicates two different temple locations - one right and one wrong
- when he composed these inspired words about the false god Moloch:
-
- "...the wisest heart Of Solomon he led by fraud
to build His Temple right against the Temple of God On that opprobrious
Hill, and made his Grove The pleasant Valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence And
black Gehenna called, the Type of Hell."
-
- Milton's genius clarifies God's commandment to Ezekiel,
"...show the house to the house of Israel..." (Ezekiel 43:10);
to obey such a command, the prophet must be able to distinguish between
two vying temple-sites that are in close proximity to each other, as are
Beth El and the Temple Mount. Indeed, if the correct temple site were
so very obvious to all, then there would be no need for a prophet to show
the house to the house of Israel! Likewise, were the whole world - even
the very elect - deceived as to the correct location for the next temple,
as is the case today with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, then a prophet
would surely be needed to set the matter straight and to "show the
house to the house of Israel." Otherwise, the wrong choice, "the
Type of Hell," would continue to be made without any warning to God's
chosen people.
-
- It must be understood that Ezekiel was among the Jewish
captives when the House of Judah fell to the Babylonians along with Jerusalem
and the first temple. But the House of Israel, to whom Ezekiel was charged
to "show the house," had already been made to disappear at the
hands of the Assyrians more than one hundred years before the Babylonian
captivity. Ezekiel was never in direct contact with the House of Israel
when he prophesied and his prophecies are therefore for the end time.
Hence, there is reason to conclude that Ezekiel's charge to "show
the house to the house of Israel" is somehow related to or at least
compatible with Jesus's instructions to his apostles to "...go rather
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (St. Matthew 10:6)
-
- The Christian concept of a spiritual temple actually
comprising the faithful and the elect and indeed Jesus Himself need not
preclude the idea of a physical Israelite temple, just as John the Baptist's
express need for baptism by Jesus did not preclude John's baptism of Jesus;
for, as Jesus said, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh
us to fulfil all righteousness." (St. Matthew 3:13-15) Building the
next temple in Israel will indeed fulfill all righteousness, but only if
the right location in Beth El is chosen!
-
- But the choice of the wrong location - on the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem - for the next temple in Israel remains a constant threat
to world peace. In this very decade right before the twenty-first century
we have already faced a controversy of parallel proportion with the still-pending
threat of Jewish extremists blowing up the Dome of the Rock so as to build
in its place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem the third Jewish temple;
I refer to the destruction of the Babri Mosque in the Hindu holy city of
Ayodhyatoday on 6 December 1992, which resulted in brutal rioting throughout
India between Hindus (82% of a total population of 844 million) and Muslims
(12%). The Babri Mosque was built in the sixteenth century and is said
to stand on the site of an old Hindu temple that marks the birthplace of
the Hindu god Ram. As Hindus clamored to destroy Al-Babri the Government
of India gave assurances that the mosque would be protected. Suddenly,
however, the Indian Government was faced with a fait accompli and all the
promises of protection were proved to be empty words. Will history repeat
itself in another part of the world where the Mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud
Olmert, said just before his election victory over long-time Jerusalem
Mayor Teddy Kollek: "Do I say we have to wipe out the Dome of the
Rock? I say, on the contrary, I'll do everything to invest in the quality
of life of the Arab residents, much more than Teddy did. Teddy did nothing
in this area." Will we rise one day to find another fait accompli
and proof that Mayor Olmert's words had no meaning behind them? Or, does
Mayor Olmert disguise a conviction that the third Jewish temple on the
Temple Mount will be an investment in the quality of life of the Arab residents?
-
- The stakes are very high indeed. The source of all the
strife, upon close examination, emanates from the "elephantiasis of
intellect and atrophy of emotion" resulting from traditional beliefs
that sometimes prevent clear understanding of Scripture and the collective
wisdom of the ages. Thus, a temple site proposed by a man (King David)
is preferred to the temple-site revealed by God to Jacob and Ezekiel!
-
- Here it would be good to consider that the prophets foretell
the advent of three rather distinct peoples to the land of Israel near
the end time: the House of Judah, the House of Israel and the people of
Gog and Magog. The choice between the right and wrong locations for the
next temple represents a way to separate, so to speak, the tares from the
wheat among them.
-
- The House of Judah largely consists of those Israelites
of the Babylonian captivity who kept their Sabbath-keeping identity and
Hebrew language intact. They are descended from the tribes of Judah and
Benjamin and Levy, which made up the Kingdom of Judah that the Babylonians
took into captivity. They are the survivors of the Babylonian exile and
the Roman occupation and their descendants are known today as the Sephardic
Jews.
-
- The House of Israel consists of the ten tribes of the
breakaway Kingdom of Israel, which were taken away by the Assyrians and
made to disappear more than one hundred years before the more familiar
Babylonian captivity described above (See II Kings 17). The prophet Amos
foretold that this House of Israel would be mingled among the gentiles
(Amos 9:9) and it was Jesus Christ who indicated that the whereabouts of
the House of Israel were unknown to the Sanhedrin when he bade his apostles
to "go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (St.
Matthew 10:6) Thus it was the House of Judah only that kept its distinctive
Sabbath-keeping and Hebrew language and is therefore known as the Sephardic
Jewry of today. The House of Israel, though still heir to the promises
just like the House of Judah, does not for the most part have a Jewish
Sabbath-keeping or Hebrew-speaking identity today because the descendants
of these ten tribes of Israel lost these traits during the Assyrian captivity
and the subsequent assimilation into northern and western Europe. Even
so, the spirit of the prophet Ezekiel will eventually show them the house
that the Lord God of Israel has chosen for Beth El.
-
- Gog and Magog include the Khazars, who are described
by the Encyclopdia Judaica as a national group of general Turkic type whose
conversion to Judaism is dated as far back as 730 C.E., when they consecrated
a tabernacle on the Mosaic model over 1260 years ago. After the fall of
the Khazar Empire, these Jews moved west into eastern and central Europe.
The Encyclopdia Judaica states:
-
- In spite of the negligible information of an archaeological
nature, the presence of Jewish groups and the impact of Jewish ideas in
Eastern Europe are considerable during the Middle Ages. Groups have been
mentioned as migrating to Central Europe from the East or have been referred
to as Khazars, thus making it impossible to overlook the possibility that
they originated from within the former Khazar Empire.
-
- These Jews of the Khazar conversion are among the Turkic
people of Gog and Magog and are known today as the Ashkenazi Jews of central
and eastern Europe, whereas the Jews descended directly from the House
of Judah are, as stated above, principally the Sephardic Jews. The Sephardic
Jews are of Semitic origin and the Ashkenazi Jews are of Turkic and European
origin; it is indeed ironic that the term "anti-Semitism" arose
among the Ashkenazi Jews in Europe.
-
- Thus, when these identities are firmly established in
one's mind, one readily understands the prophecy of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 39:2)
wherein a remnant of one-sixth of Gog will survive and be brought from
the north to the mountains of Israel. This is the extermination of the
Ashkenazi Jews at the hands of the Nazis and the Zionist emigration out
of Europe into Palestine, which is commonly mistaken for the ingathering.
-
- Thus has this militant Zionism of a decidedly Ashkenazic
cast usurped in one fell swoop both the promise of a scepter to Judah and
the real Jews of the House of Judah (Genesis 49:10) and the birthright
promise to Joseph's sons (Genesis 48:20) and the descendants of the "lost
ten tribes" of the House of Israel. One only needs to take an objective
look at Zionism today to know the import of the question that God commanded
Ezekiel to ask of Gog (Ezekiel 38:14): "Thus saith the Lord God; In
that day when my people Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?"
Just turn on your television set to the world news to find out the answer
to God's own reality-check for the people of Gog who have usurped the name
of Israel and have made the name of Israel to stink in the assembly of
nations!
-
- With regard to the United Nations, where both the United
States (a land literally flowing with milk and honey) and the Ashkenazi-dominated
State of Israel (Gog) have conspired to frustrate either the passage or
implementation of one Security Council resolution after another with regard
to the Arab- Zionist dispute, one should be aware of the Almighty's displeasure
as expressed through Ezekiel (Ezekiel 5:7): "...neither have done
according to the judgments of the nations...." Such haughty disregard
for the decent opinion of mankind is just one reason for the Almighty to
turn against the real Israel as well as Gog! Here are all the reasons,
with the author's own emphasis added in italics:
-
- Because ye are multiplied more than the nations that
are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept
my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations
that are round about you; Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I,
even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee
in the sight of the nations." (Ezekiel 5:7-8)
-
- But enough of this foreboding tone and concentration
on the Almighty's curses and more about the blessings that were also promised
as part of the bargain between the Almighty and His chosen people. Whereas
these blessings on the seed of Abraham in general as well as on the Israelites
in particular are indeed racial in nature, there is also a spiritual dimension
that must be given paramount importance in the foregoing consideration
of identities, be they of Gog and Magog or of Israel or of Judah or of
indeed most anyone else. Thus it was said by St. John the Baptist (St.
Matthew 3:9):
-
- And think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham
to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to
raise up children unto Abraham.
-
- Virtually anybody is eligible to belong to the Abrahamic
family and be heirs to the promises made to Abraham. For example, even
a Lubavitch Jew whose origins are from Khazaria via central and eastern
Europe, and therefore fits the Ashkenazic Gog and Magog type, may nevertheless
transcend the terrible prophecies made concerning Gog and Magog by living
according to the Golden Rule and obeying all the commands of the God of
Israel. Likewise, it is also very important to understand that when the
land of Israel is finally divided among the tribes of Israel, Ezekiel states:
-
- "ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto
you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children
among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the
children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes
of Israel." (Ezekiel 47:22)
-
- Surely in the vast sweep of history this end-time prophecy
of an ancient Hebrew prophet concerning "the strangers that sojourn
among you" applies today to the indigenous Arab population of historic
Palestine. The unity of brethren, the blood of Abraham, must triumph over
the discordant notion and practice of exclusivity and separateness from
"the other"!
-
- After all is said and done, God is still the Judge and
the Executioner for better or for worse; those who live in His favor will
be the ones who look for and find the place that the Almighty has chosen
for his habitation, which is Beth-el. But the false impostors and others
who do not look for and find - or do not believe when shown - the correct
location for Israel's next temple are sowing the wind and will reap a whirlwind.
-
- Finally, it is worth adding that the Lord of Israel's
jealousy was aroused by Samuel's fulfillment of a positive command written
in the Book of Deuteronomy (17:15), to set a man as King of Israel. Being
King of Israel is certainly no easy matter; perhaps being King of a truly
democratic and integrated State of Jerusalem with one capital and one citizenship
and a maximum range of settlement and opportunity for Jews, Muslims and
Christians alike is more in keeping with the spirit of prophecy, particularly
the spirit of Ezekiel, as just set forth above in Ezekiel 47:22. At any
rate, being the first to know and understand and actually expound on where
the next Israelite temple really belongs is a,very good beginning. This
is the only way for a Jew to perform the mitzvah of all mitzvahs.
-
- A Christian skeptic need only remember the words of Jesus
to Nicodemus: "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe
not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?" (St.
John 3:12) And a Muslim can relax as the danger of an assault on the Dome
of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque goes away. Everybody will be happy!
-
- STEPHEN M. ST.JOHN 1977, 1996 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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