2 Esdras 10:12-14

Common English Bible

¹² Perhaps you say to me, ‘My lamentation isn’t like that of the earth, because I lost the fruit of my womb, which I bore with pains and brought forth with sorrows. ¹³ The earth, however, is just following the way of the earth; the multitude that is present on it goes as it came.’ ¹⁴ I would then say to you, ‘As you gave birth with grief, so also from the beginning the earth yielded its fruit, humanity, to him who made it.’