2 Esdras 5:31-40

Common English Bible

³¹ When I had said these words, the angel who had come to me on the previous night was sent to me. ³² He said to me: “Listen to me, and I will instruct you; pay attention to me, and I will tell you more.”

³³ I said, “Speak, my Lord.”

He said to me, “Are you really more deeply disturbed over Israel, or do you love him more than the one who made him does?”

³⁴ I said: “No, Lord, but I spoke in grief. My heart torments me every hour while I try to make sense of the Most High’s ways and investigate his decisions.”

³⁵ He said to me, “You can’t.”

And I said: “Why, Lord? Or else why was I born, and why did my mother’s womb not become my tomb so that I might not see the toil of Jacob and the exhaustion of the line of Israel?”

³⁶ He said to me: “Count for me those who haven’t yet been born, gather for me the scattered raindrops, make the withered flowers bloom again for me, ³⁷ open for me the closed warehouses and bring forth for me the winds shut up in them, or show me what a voice looks like. Then I will show you what you ask to see.”

³⁸ I said: “Supreme Lord, who can know these things except one who doesn’t live among human beings? ³⁹ But I’m ignorant. How can I speak of these things that you asked me about?”

⁴⁰ He said to me: “As you can’t do one of these things that were mentioned, so you can’t comprehend my judgment or the goal^[a] of the love I have promised to my people.”