2 Esdras 1:27-29

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

²⁷ It is not as though you had forsaken me; you have forsaken yourselves, says the Lord.

²⁸ ‘Thus says the Lord Almighty: Have I not entreated you as a father entreats his sons or a mother her daughters or a nurse her children, ²⁹ so that you should be my people and I should be your God, and that you should be my children and I should be your father?