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Some scholars currently working on new commentaries to 2 Corinthians and others updating older ones have expressed some interest in the series of articles I have posted on this blog concerning the proper translation of 2 Cor. 5:10, namely the subordinate clause. Since the grammar of this passage has never been rigorously examined by any commentator as far as I know, and only touched on by a few, I have decided to write what I would consider to be a concise but thorough treatment of the issue. If you would like to explore this question in greater depth, I invite you to dip into my full exegetical article posted on this blog at the following link.
For the less ambitious reader, you might prefer to review one or more of these short articles:
So, with the preliminaries out of the way, let us get to it. The subordinate clause in the Greek text reads as follows: ἵνα κομίσηται ἕκαστος τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν. Let us break this down into its parts. We see here two prepositional phrases, διὰ τοῦ σώματος (in or through the body), and πρὸς ἃ (according to which, or with reference to which, the “the things” or works). Preceding the first prepositional phrase is the definite article τὰ, which in Greek serves to nominalize or substantivize the prepositional phrase διὰ τοῦ σώματος. In other words, the article turns the phrase into a noun, or what some grammarians refer to as a composite noun. We also have the adjective ἕκαστος, meaning each or every. Finally, we have two verbs bracketing the two prepositional phrases. The first verb κομίσηται (aor. subj. middle voice of κομιζω) means variously to receive, to receive back, to receive back for oneself. The second verb ἔπραξεν (aor. of πράσσω) means to do or to practice. Both verbs are transitive, which simply indicates “a verb whose action passes over to a noun.” Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, 471. (Full citations of the authorities referenced in this note can be found in the bibliography at the end of the full exegetical article cited above.)
Interestingly, there appear to be few, if any, direct parallels in the Greek New Testament, or in other early Christian literature, to the difficult grammatical and syntactical structure of this text, and certainly none where two prepositional phrases appear back-to-back while bracketed between two transitive verbs, with an article closely preceding the first phrase and a relative pronoun directly preceding the second verb, both of which share a neuter plural. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that this odd construction is unique in all extant ancient Greek literature. Compare Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 172. That alone should have alerted commentators and other scholars that there is perhaps more here than meets the eye.
So, how should we go about translating this unusual passage? Standard grammatical exegesis would suggest the following approach. Once it is established that the phrase τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος functions here as a substantive, which it clearly does, the next question is how it relates, if at all, to the subsequent phrase πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν. According to Mathewson, Intermediate Greek Grammar, 244, “the most common function of the relative clause [in this case, πρὸς ἃ] is as a modifier (secondary clause): [I]t modifies another clause to which it is connected by its antecedent. Sometimes the modifying relative pronoun is the object of a preposition in its own clause.” Köstenberger, Going Deeper with New Testament Greek, 398, states this same idea in a slightly different way: “A relative pronoun … is a pronoun that (usually) ‘relates back’ to an antecedent noun and allows the writer to make an additional explanatory comment about that noun. The entire clause introduced by the relative pronoun is called a relative clause.” Robertson, Greek Grammar of the New Testament, 711, underscored this strong relational aspect of the relative pronoun: “The relative becomes the chief bond of connection between clauses…The agreement of the relative with antecedent in person, number, gender, and sometimes, case, is just the natural effort to relate more exactly the two clauses with each other.”
Following this line of analysis to support the conventional rendering of the passage, the relative clause πρὸς ἃ would “relate back” to its antecedent, which in this case would be the article τὰthat nominalizes the prepositional phrase, διὰ τοῦ σώματος. Note that the relative pronoun ἃ and the article τὰ not only fall near one other in the text, separated only by the nominalized prepositional phrase and the preposition of which the relative pronoun ἃ is its object, but moreover share both a neuter plural and the accusative case. Thus, the argument would proceed, the two are grammatically linked in what is essentially an inseparable bond (Robertson, Greek Grammar of the New Testament, 711). The subordinate clause would then arguably begin with the relative clause πρὸς ἅ that in turn elaborates, defines, and modifies its antecedent, “the things (τὰ) through or in the body,” and thus connects the prepositional phrase διὰ τοῦ σώματος with the following verb, ἔπραξεν. This construction would account for the NIV translation “for the things done while in the body,” and similar texts.
There are two glaring problems with this standard analysis, however. First, such a reading would impute to the prior article and nominalized phrase the notion that “what is ‘received (back)’ is one’s earthly activity,” which would at best make only “obscure sense.” Thrall, II Corinthians 1-7: Volume 1, 395, fn 1443. For a translation that adopted this questionable approach, see Tyndale Bible of 1526: “For we must all appere before the iudgement seate of Christ that every man maye receave the workes of his body accordynge to that he hath done whether it be good or bad.” (Emphasis added.) The other reason to question this analysis is that it would imply an automatic requital for one’s deeds through “the metonymy by which we are said to receive back what we have done…in the identity of the deed and its requital’.” Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary 157. Such a mechanical version of judgment conflicts with Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 407, who wrote that the presence of the article τὰdoes not denote”simply metonymy for ‘the consequences of,’ as though the κομίσασθαι were merely the outcome of some immanental process by which the reaping of consequences followed inexorably on the sowing of actions, for in this case the reference to an appearance and examination before the βήμα would be rendered superfluous.” (Emphasis added.)
Scholars of 2 Corinthians might be surprised to learn that Plummer’s incorrect reading of “the identity of the deed and its requital” is based originally on a sermon delivered by F.W. Robertson at Trinity Chapel in 1852 that effectively reduces Christ’s role in his own Judgment Seat to a mere ministerial act, much like a notary public witnessing a document prepared by others: “Consider then the terrors of the Judgment. Remember, St. Paul does not say merely that he shall receive according to what he hath done in the body, but that he shall receive the things done―the self-same things he did―they are to be his punishment.” Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 157, quoting Robertson’s sermon. For the full text of Robertson’s sermon on this point, see my exegetical article cited above.
Now that we can see that the standard grammatical treatment of this text yields some rather notable deficiencies, by what other ways have scholars sought to justify the conventional translation? Four methods come to mind that are easily disposed of before we arrive at the final two approaches, which merit far more consideration.
Furnish, II Corinthians, 276, suggested that the “present [translation] in effect ignores the article (ta) and includes the phrase [διὰ τοῦ σώματος] in the relative clause, what each has done.” The problem with this approach is that it glosses over the plain language of the text by removing an essential component, that is, the definite article. Moreover, this analysis disregards the fact that by removing the article, διὰ τοῦ σώματος would no longer function as a noun but as an adverbial phrase. Why then would this phrase not be treated as modifying the first verb, the verb to which it is most closely connected, κομίσηται, rather than the more distant second verb, ἔπραξεν? The answer, of course, is that it would serve to modify κομίσηται, so that what one “receives back,” one receives “through the body.”
Another noted scholar took a more direct approach to this problem. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 172, proposed this solution to the troublesome reference to the body: “Eine andere Lösung wäre die Einbeziehung von τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος in den Relativsatz…je nachdem er gehandelt hat im Leibe.” In other words, without any discussion of why the underlying grammar would support such a reading, Windisch posited an alternative rationale that would simply transport the phrase τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος into the following relative clause πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν, yielding in German, “je nachdem er gehandelt hat im Leibe.” This, in effect, compounds the error noted above of relating the relative pronoun back to the article by essentially reversing the process.
Two more approaches have been suggested. One would rework the passage to express “personal agency in which the body acts as the subject of the doing” (Rogers, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament, 402). This approach is taken directly from the work of Robert H. Gundry, Soma in Biblical Theology, with emphasis on Pauline Anthropology. Gundry, 187, reasoned that “the grammar of the statement [διὰ τοῦ σώματος] requires sōma to be strictly instrumental” and that “the genitival object of διὰ [that is, τοῦ σώματος] is the doer of the action.” Gundry, 187, then classified what he called “the actions” (τὰ …πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν) as the real “object” of the body’s “doing,” not the body itself. In formal, as opposed to theological, terms, Gundry made τοῦ σώματος the subject in the dependent clause acting upon the prior article τὰ, which in turn was linked to the following phrase (πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν) by means of the relative pronoun (187): “But the instrument is an agent, an actor, with the result that the genitival object of διὰ becomes the intermediate subject of the action. Since sōma does not refer to some lifeless instrument separate from the doer, but to a living part of the doer, the phrase διὰ τοῦ σώματος expresses personal agency in which the body acts as the subject of the doing.”
While this note is generally sympathetic to Gundry’s definitional approach to the body, τό σϖμα, and to the overall importance of meaning in Biblical exegesis, none of that justifies disregarding the formal elements and plain language of the text to advance a broad theological agenda. See Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 7: “[M]odern semantics often falls short in that it does not have an adequate empirical base.”
Finally, some have suggested treating the term “each” (ἕκαστος) as the implied subject of the verb ἔπραξεν so that τά, instead of πρὸς ἃ, would arguably begin the subordinate clause. The obvious problem here is that this proposed reading strays far afield from the plain language of the text. Compare Robertson, Greek Grammar of the New Testament, 418: “The minor words in a sentence [here, that would be ἕκαστος] in general…come close to the word to which they belong in sense.” The fact that these two terms, ἕκαστος and ἔπραξεν, do not fall near each other in this passage, but are separated by two prepositional phrases, should be a warning sign against any such efforts essentially to rewrite the text.
After cutting through all this grammatical underbrush, we finally arrive at the essence of the matter. In her widely acclaimed commentary, Margaret Thrall proposed what has become the definitive grammatical treatment of this passage by advancing a creative but ultimately flawed effort to defend the conventional translations. In fn 1443 and fn 1444, II Corinthians 1-7: Volume 1, 395, Thrall supported the traditional translation by relying on an “extended” definition of κομιζω, and by implying through ellipsis the addition of the participle πεπράγμενα (things done, actions, deeds) immediately after the article τὰ. She made no explicit effort to link the two clauses (τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος and πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν) either grammatically or conceptually. Thus, the only issue here concerns the treatment of the first verbκομίσηταιand its relationship to the subsequent phrase τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος.
In fn 1443, after noting that κομιζω in the middle voice means “get for oneself” or “receive,” Thrall, 395, wrote that “[h]ere, what is ‘received (back)’ is one’s earthly activity.” Concluding, however (395), that since this only makes “obscure sense, the meaning must be extended somewhat.” Without telling us precisely why it must be extended (that is, the conceptual basis for doing so) other than to relieve the obscurity of the text, Thrall defined the term as to “‘receive (something) in return for’ (earthly activity), ‘receive recompense’.” Thrall, 395, fn 1443. Compare Kruse, Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament 2 Corinthians, 111: “κομίσηται expresses purpose: so that each may be repaid”; and Martin, 2 Corinthians, 115: “The Christian will receive (note how the use of the middle voice for κομίσηται stresses the action of the agent; this fits in well with the remainder of this verse) or ‘receive back’ or ‘receive what is one’s own (‘reap’ or ‘get back for one’s self’….”
While the broad definition of receiving recompense is possible, there is no precedent for including within the definition per se the precise terms and nature of the exchange. See, for example, Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 171: “κομίσηται heißt im gewöhnlichen Sprachgebrauch eine Gebühr, ein Recht, einen Besitz, Lohn, Gehalt, eine Strafe rechtmäßig in Empfang nehmen”; and Baumert, Täglich Sterben und Auferstehen, cited by Thrall, 395, fn 1443: “[T]he meaning is ‘receive a verdict,’ an evaluation of one’s deeds.”
Thrall, 395, fn 1444, attempted to remedy this oversight by classifying the phrase τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος as “elliptical,” thereby “requiring, e.g., πεπράγμενα [things done] after τὰ.” In this way, the author sought to make clear what the plain language of the text does not; namely, that the body (σώματος) should be read solely with reference to one’s earthly activity, and not to the site of judgment.
Both Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 407, fn 231 (viewing πραχθέντα and πεπράγμενα as interchangeable here), and Windisch 172, adopted a similar approach to Thrall’s: “In der Tat ist zu τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος etwa πεπράγμενα oder είργασμένα zu ergänzen.” Windisch reasoned that “ein jeder trägt davon, was er durch sein körperliches Handeln erwirbt hat; πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν entsprechend dem, was er getan hat.” This would be true, he argued, 172, whether διὰ should be viewed instrumentally (“was durch den Leib, durch die Glieder des Leibes getan ist”) or temporally (“was in der leiblichen Existenz, bei Leibesleben getan ist”). According to Windisch, 172, both point to individual responsibility for one’s bodily behavior: “Beide Fassungen sind darin eins, da sie nur für eine Verantwortung für das irdische Dasein annehmen.” Why Windisch’s reading of this text (essentially, one gets what one deserves) requires an elliptical insertion of a participle denoting earthly activity when that semantic function (“sein körperliches Handeln,” 172) is fully satisfied by the presence of the following relative clause, πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν, remained unexplained.
Ellipsis or an elliptical expression refers to “words or phrases normally omitted in a discourse when the sense is perfectly clear without them.” Newman, A Translator’s Handbook on The Gospel of John, 67. In Nida, Style and Discourse, 34 and 36, the authors in describing the rhetorical feature of “omissions” observed that the “most common kind of omissions are syntactic ellipses, and these more often than not involve the omission of so-called function words, that is to say, words which serve to relate textual elements to one another. … There appears to be no instance of an omission in the New Testament which cannot be supplied from the immediate context or from one’s knowledge of patterns of cultural avoidance.” See also BDF, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ¶ 479: “Ellipsis (brachylogy) in the broad sense applies to any idea which is not fully expressed grammatically and leaves it to the hearer or reader to supply the omission because it is self-evident.” BDF, ¶ 480, lists various ellipses of verbs in formulaic constructions, none of which would apply here.
The problem with classifying the phrase τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος as elliptical is that it ignores a deep theological problem embedded in the text that has never been seriously addressed, other than a cursory treatment by perhaps a couple of scholars. (Read my full exegetical article for more details on this). Furnish, II Corinthians, 276, observed that the clause “textually, syntactically…and also grammatically” is far from perfectly clear, either in general, or from the immediate context. Indeed, it is perfectly unclear. Again, Furnish, 305: “[T]he syntax of this verse is extremely unclear.”
This lack of clarity extends beyond the grammar and syntax and goes to the very meaning of the passage: “The troublesome phrase is the one that mentions the body [τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος]. In addition to the syntactical problem, one should note that it is quite unique to have bodily existence mentioned at all when the topic is the last judgment, as it is here. Thus, the phrase [τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος] calls attention to itself both grammatically and conceptually.” Furnish, II Corinthians, 305 (Emphasis added). While Greek is a flexible language (Compare BDF, ¶ 473: “Because of the flexibility of the Greek language, vivid, impassioned speech easily gives rise to…dislocations” in normal word order), such flexibility should not be taken as a license to rework conceptually and syntactically problematic texts to achieve some predetermined result.
In short, the purported omissions in the text which Thrall attempted to fill or remedy by implication, namely by adding a participle and an associated prepositional phrase (in exchange for, or in return for) “cannot be supplied from the immediate context” (Nida, Style and Discourse, 36) because that context is fundamentally unclear, largely because of the very phrase the meaning of which Thrall was attempting to clarify, τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος. Furnish, II Corinthians, 276 and 305.
As an aside, another reason to question the conventional translation is that in his influential commentary on this point, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, 159, Plummer ascribes to Paul and Paul’s view of judgment various principles grounded in Greek philosophy (notably Gorgias, 523,524) to support the proposition that people “must not be judged till after death.” The reason, according to the ancient Greeks as related to us by Plummer, is that “‘there are many who have evil souls clad in comely bodies,’ and that they must be stripped of these misleading coverings in order to be fairly judged.”
This view is largely based on the pagan notion advanced by Plato and others (and totally at odds with Christian thinking of the unity of the body and soul in each person ) that (Plummer, quoting from the Greek text, page 159): “Death, it seems to me, is nothing else than the separation of two things from one another, the soul and the body…When the soul is stripped of the body, all its natural devotion to this or that pursuit, are laid bare to view. And when the souls come to the judge, he takes that of some potentate, whose soul is full of the prints and scars of perjuries and crimes with which his conduct has marked it, and has many crooked places, because of lying and vanity, and has not straightness, because he lived without truth. This soul the judge looks at and sends away to a place where it must undergo the treatment which it requires.”
Thus, many scholars and commentators, like Plummer and Thrall, knowingly or unwittingly, have based their reading of 2 Cor. 5:10, at least in part, on pagan Greek views on the duality of the body and soul. This is especially important here since Margaret Thrall in what has become the definitive treatment of 2 Cor. 5:10 prominently cites Plummer in support of her reading of the text. See Thrall, 395, fn 1443 and fn 1444.
Now, we arrive at what I would suggest is the proper grammatical treatment of the passage. The second prepositional phrase (πρὸς ἃ) is read solely with reference to the second verb, ἔπραξεν; in other words, the phrase πρὸς ἃ, by denoting reference, relates to the following verb ἔπραξεν by “delimiting the extent of that verb’s action.” Köstenberger, Going Deeper with New Testament Greek, 71. This is because the conceptual relationship between the two clauses, τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος and πρὸς ἃ, or more accurately the lack thereof, should far outweigh any purely grammatical affinity. Simply put, the relative pronoun ἃ (“the things”) in the phrase πρὸς ἃ refers generally to “works” or “deeds,” or “what we did.” In stark contrast, the preceding article τὰ (alsoin a general sense, “the things”)refers to “deserts” or “recompense” or “what is due.” Compare Zerwick, A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, 544.
In other words, we have here a case of the proverbial apples and oranges asbetween the two adjacent clauses:τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματοςand πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν. How then can the relative pronoun “relate back” (Köstenberger, Going Deeper with New Testament Greek, 398) to the article so as “to modify” or elaborate (Mathewson, Intermediate Greek Grammar, 244) the preceding nominalized prepositional phrase (διὰ τοῦ σώματος) when the relative pronoun and article refer to (that is, conceptualize) entirely different “things?”
The relative pronoun here denoting “works” or “what each has done” cannot therefore fulfill its usual relational function. Accordingly, the substantivized phrase διὰ τοῦ σώματος, instead of being somehow transported into the following clause (Furnish, II Corinthians, 276), is treated as the direct object of κομίσηται. The phrase is thus likened to an accusative noun. “The accusative case is the case of limitation or extension, delimiting the action of a verb. The accusative ‘measures an idea as to its content, scope, [or] direction’.” Köstenberger, Going Deeper with New Testament Greek, 64. See also Mathewson, Intermediate Greek Grammar, 28: “verbs in general take accusative direct objects … [s]ome grammars call it the case of limitation or extent.”
Thus, under this line of reasoning, the prepositional phrase διὰ τοῦ σώματος would measure the idea of receiving (from the verb κομίσηται) “as to its content, scope, direction.” Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 37. It would do so by signifying the means through which recompenseis to be received, in this case through the instrumentality of the body. Compare Robertson, Greek Grammar of the New Testament, 582, where in explaining the agency role of the preposition διὰ, the author wrote: “Here, of course, the agent is conceived as coming in between the non-attainment and the attainment of the object in view.” Thus, under Robertson’s reading of agency as applied to the revised translation proposed here, it would be the body (σώματος) that would serve as the vehicle by which and through which Christ’s judgment of believers is attained.
The bottom line is that under this revised rendering the subordinate clause would not read “so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body” (NIV and similar texts), but rather “so that each of us may receive in or through the body what is due us for the things or works we have done.” This alternative reading would yield many doctrinal benefits. For example, it would eliminate any perceived tension between the doctrines of justification according to works and salvation by faith. It would also remove the need for scholars to postulate and explain some hazy intermediate state between the death of believers and their final judgment. Perhaps, most importantly, this revised understanding of the passage would not only clarify Christ’s role in the earthly purification and sanctification of his followers prior to death, but also reinforce the ultimate Good News of scripture that all those who at any point in their lives trust in Christ will be saved. To explore these and other implications of the revised reading in greater detail, you are invited to consider one of more of the following short pieces posted on this blog:
For those hoping to salvage the conventional rendering of this passage through a resort to textual criticism, there are indeed two notable variant readings of this passage: D* F G, fifth century and onward, ἃ διὰ τοῦ σώματος ἔπραξεν; and the earlier Papyrus 46, τὰ ἴδια τοῦ σώματος ἃ ἔπραξεν. These variants likely sought to improve what overly zealous scribes believed to be Paul’s unnecessarily cumbersome grammatical construction, that is, “an obvious attempt to improve the syntax.” Furnish, II Corinthians, 276. But for the possibility of scribal error, see Thrall, II Corinthians 1-7: Volume, 396. Owing to their general lack of attestation, there is little chance that any of these variants represent the original text. See, for example, Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, (Corrected Edition, 1975), 580, whichreported no variant readings under 2 Cor. 5:10; and Thrall, II Corinthians 1-7: Volume 1, 396: “The majority reading will be correct.”
Perhaps Windisch in his seminal work summed up best any effort to resort to variant texts to “correct” the syntax of this difficult passage. In doing so, Windisch, 172, even admitted that he was tempted to strike one of the two phrases, τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος or πρὸς ἃ: “man ist versucht, eine der Wendungen als Glosse zu streichen.” He finally concluded, however, that the phrase τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος was simply too difficult (schwierig) not to be the original: “aber τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος ist für eine Glosse zu originell und zu schwierig, und πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν wäre auch nicht gerade die nächstliegende Glosse für τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος.”
The question I would ask here is that if this passage is so grammatically and conceptually problematic, which it clearly is, why haven’t scholars delved into it more thoroughly? One can only speculate about the glaring dearth of discussion in the literature, but perhaps the notion that judgment for believers can only take place in some future apocalyptic venue is so engrained in church teaching that many commentators when considering this passage simply overlook the possibility of some other outcome. In any event, because so much of the literature simply assumes the correctness of the standard translation, there seems little need to articulate in detail its grammatical and conceptual underpinnings.
A doctrinal course correction is clearly needed here, however, and it is not as new or revolutionary as some might fear. One unknown preacher recognized this in what is now considered the earliest recorded Christian sermon outside of the New Testament, Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, Greek Texts and English Translations, 2 Clement 9, 148,150 (translated by Holmes):
“And let none of you say that this flesh is not judged and does not rise again. Think about this: In what state were you saved? In what state did you recover your sight, if it was not while you were in the flesh? We must, therefore, guard the flesh as a temple of God. For just as you were called in the flesh, so you will come in the flesh. If Christ, the Lord who saved us, became flesh (even though he was originally spirit) and in that state called us, so also we will receive our reward in this flesh.” (Emphasis added.)
I will leave it at that. Thank you for reading this short post, and please leave a comment below if the urge strikes you. I will strive, Lord Willing, to respond quickly as best I can. But before I go, I want to alert readers who are now juggling in their minds various scriptural passages that would seem to contradict the above analysis, that many of these verses are addressed either in the articles posted on this blog referenced above, or in the accompanying comments. Indeed, the comment sections to these articles contain some of the more piercing, and one would hope more persuasive, analysis and discussion as I attempt to respond as ably as I can to reader questions and insights.
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