2 Esdras 12:44-46

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴⁴ Therefore if you forsake us, how much better it would have been for us if we also had been consumed in the burning of Zion.^{(A) 45} For we are no better than those who died there.” And they wept with a loud voice.

Then I answered them and said,^{(B) 46} “Take courage, O Israel, and do not be sorrowful, O house of Jacob,