2 Esdras 7:132-8:3

Common English Bible

¹³² I answered: “I know, Lord, that the Most High is now called merciful, since he has mercy on those who haven’t yet come into the world. He is called ¹³³ gracious, since he has mercy on those who convert to his Law, ¹³⁴ and patient, because he shows patience to those who have sinned, since they are his own creation. ¹³⁵ I know that he is called generous, because he wants to give gifts rather than demand them, ¹³⁶ and very merciful, because he multiplies mercies more and more to those now alive and those who went before and those who are to come in the future. ¹³⁷ If, indeed, he hadn’t multiplied them, the world with those who live in it would not now exist. ¹³⁸ He is called^[a] giver, because if he didn’t give out of his own goodness some relief from their sins to people who committed sins, not one ten-thousandth part of humanity could live. ¹³⁹ He is called judge, because unless he forgave those created by his word and wiped out the multitude of their offenses, ¹⁴⁰ perhaps only a very few would be left from the innumerable multitude.”

8 He answered me: “The Most High made this world for the sake of many but the future world for the sake of few. ² But I will tell you a parable, Ezra. Just as when you ask the earth and it tells you that it provides much clay to make earthenware, but little dust from which gold comes to be, so the present world also works. ³ Many indeed are created, but few will be saved.”