2 Esdras 5:43-45

Common English Bible

⁴³ I replied, “Couldn’t you have created all at once those who have been and those who are and those who will be so that you might show your judgment more quickly?”

⁴⁴ He replied to me, “The creation can’t run ahead of its creator, nor can the world sustain all at one time those who are created in it.”

⁴⁵ I said: “How then could you say to your servant that you will certainly give life to the creation created by you at one time? If, therefore, they will live at one time^[a] and the creation will sustain them then, couldn’t it sustain them at one time now?”