2 Esdras 4:1-12

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Limitations of the Human Mind

4 Then the angel that had been sent to me, whose name was Uriel, answered^{(A) 2} and said to me, “Your understanding has utterly failed regarding this world, and do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High?”^{(B) 3} Then I said, “Yes, my lord.” And he replied to me, “I have been sent to show you three ways and to put before you three problems.^{(C) 4} If you can solve one of them for me, then I will show you the way you desire to see and will teach you why the heart is evil.”

⁵ I said, “Speak, my lord.”

And he said to me, “Go, weigh for me the weight of fire, or measure for me a blast^[a] of wind, or call back for me the day that is past.”^(D)

⁶ I answered and said, “Who of those that have been born can do that, that you should ask me about such things?”

⁷ And he said to me, “If I had asked you, ‘How many dwellings are in the heart of the sea, or how many streams are at the source of the deep, or how many streams are above the firmament, or which are the exits of Hades, or which are the entrances^[b] of paradise?’^{(E) 8} perhaps you would have said to me, ‘I never went down into the deep, nor as yet into Hades, neither did I ever ascend into heaven.’^{(F) 9} But now I have asked you only about fire and wind and the day, things that you have experienced and from which you cannot be separated, and you have given me no answer about them.”^{(G) 10} He said to me, “You cannot understand the things with which you have grown up; ¹¹ how, then, can your mind comprehend the way of the Most High?^[c] And how can one who is already worn out by the corrupt world understand incorruption?”^[d] When I heard this, I fell on my face^{[e](H) 12} and said to him, “It would have been better for us not to be here than to come here and live in ungodliness and to suffer and not understand why.”^(I)