2 Esdras 4:39-41

Common English Bible

³⁹ Is it perhaps because of us, and because of the sins of those who live on earth, that the harvest of the just is delayed?”

⁴⁰ He answered me, “Go ask a pregnant woman whether her womb can keep the baby inside her when she has completed her nine months.”

⁴¹ I said, “It can’t, Lord.”

He said to me: “The underworld^[a] and the resting places of the souls are like the womb.