2 Esdras 3:20-22

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²⁰ “Yet you did not take away their evil heart from them, so that your law might produce fruit in them.^{(A) 21} For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him.^{(B) 22} Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the hearts of the people along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained.^(C)