2 Esdras 10:7-9

Revised Standard Version

⁷ For Zion, the mother of us all, is in deep grief and great affliction. ⁸ It is most appropriate to mourn now, because we are all mourning, and to be sorrowful, because we are all sorrowing; you are sorrowing for one son, but we, the whole world, for our mother.^{[a] 9} Now ask the earth, and she will tell you that it is she who ought to mourn over so many who have come into being upon her.