2 Esdras 4:10-12

Revised Standard Version

¹⁰ And he said to me, “You cannot understand the things with which you have grown up; ¹¹ how then can your mind comprehend the way of the Most High? And how can one who is already worn out^[a] by the corrupt world understand incorruption?”^[b] When I heard this, I fell on my face^{[c] 12} and said to him, “It would be better for us not to be here than to come here and live in ungodliness, and to suffer and not understand why.”