2 Esdras 4:44-52
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
How Much Time Remains?
44 I answered and said, “If I have found favor in your sight, and if it is possible, and if I am worthy,(A) 45 show me this also: whether more time is to come than has passed or whether for us the greater part has gone by.(B) 46 For I know what has gone by, but I do not know what is to come.”
47 And he said to me, “Stand at my right side, and I will show you the interpretation of a parable.”
48 So I stood and looked, and a flaming furnace passed by before me, and when the flame had gone by I looked, and the smoke remained. 49 And after this a cloud full of water passed before me and poured down a heavy and violent rain, and when the violent rainstorm had passed, drops still remained in it.
50 He said to me, “Consider it for yourself, for just as the rain is more than the drops and the fire is greater than the smoke, so the quantity that passed was far greater, but drops and smoke remained.”(C)
51 Then I prayed and said, “Do you think that I shall live until those days? Or who will be alive in those days?”
52 He answered me and said, “Concerning the signs about which you ask me, I can tell you in part, but I was not sent to tell you concerning your life, for I do not know.(D)
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