2 Esdras 14:27-36
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Ezra’s Last Words to the People
27 Then I went as he commanded me, and I gathered all the people together and said, 28 “Hear these words, O Israel.(A) 29 At first our ancestors lived as aliens in Egypt, and they were liberated from there(B) 30 and received the law of life, which they did not keep, which you also have transgressed after them.(C) 31 Then land was given to you for a possession in the land of Zion, but you and your ancestors committed iniquity and did not keep the ways that the Most High commanded you. 32 And since he is a righteous judge, in due time he took from you what he had given.(D) 33 And now you are here, and your people[a] are farther in the interior.[b] 34 If you, then, will rule over your minds and discipline your hearts, you shall be kept alive, and after death you shall obtain mercy. 35 For after death the judgment will come, when we shall live again, and then the names of the righteous shall become manifest, and the deeds of the ungodly shall be disclosed.(E) 36 But let no one come to me now, and let no one seek me for forty days.”(F)
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