2 Esdras 10:12-14

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹² But if you say to me, ‘My lamentation is not like the earth’s, for I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth in pain and bore in sorrow,^{(A) 13} but it is with the earth according to the way of the earth: the multitude that is now in it goes as it came,’ ¹⁴ then I say to you, ‘Just as you brought forth in sorrow, so the earth also has from the beginning given her fruit, that is, humankind, to him who made her.’^(B)