2 Esdras 5:31-55

Revised Standard Version

Response to Ezra’s Complaints

³¹ When I had spoken these words, the angel who had come to me on a previous night was sent to me, ³² and he said to me, “Listen to me, and I will instruct you; pay attention to me, and I will tell you more.”

³³ And I said, “Speak, my lord.” And he said to me, “Are you greatly disturbed in mind over Israel?^[a] Or do you love him more than his Maker does?”

³⁴ And I said, “No, my lord, but because of my grief I have spoken; for every hour I suffer agonies of heart, while I strive to understand the way of the Most High and to search out part of his judgment.”

³⁵ And he said to me, “You cannot.” And I said, “Why not, my lord? Why then was I born? Or why did not my mother’s womb become my grave, that I might not see the travail of Jacob and the exhaustion of the people of Israel?”

³⁶ He said to me, “Count up for me those who have not yet come, and gather for me the scattered raindrops, and make the withered flowers bloom again for me; ³⁷ open for me the closed chambers, and bring forth for me the winds shut up in them, or show me the picture of a voice; and then I will explain to you the travail that you ask to understand.”^[b]

³⁸ And I said, “O sovereign Lord, who is able to know these things except he whose dwelling is not with men? ³⁹ As for me, I am without wisdom, and how can I speak concerning the things which thou hast asked me?”

⁴⁰ He said to me, “Just as you cannot do one of the things that were mentioned, so you cannot discover my judgment, or the goal of the love that I have promised my people.”

Why Successive Generations Have Been Created

⁴¹ And I said, “Yet behold, O Lord, thou dost have charge of those who are alive at the end, but what will those do who were before us, or we, or those who come after us?”

⁴² He said to me, “I shall liken my judgment to a circle;^[c] just as for those who are last there is no slowness, so for those who are first there is no haste.”

⁴³ Then I answered and said, “Couldst thou not have created at one time those who have been and those who are and those who will be, that thou mightest show thy judgment the sooner?”

⁴⁴ He replied to me and said, “The creation cannot make more haste than the Creator, neither can the world hold at one time those who have been created in it.”

⁴⁵ And I said, “How hast thou said to thy servant that thou^[d] wilt certainly give life at one time to thy creation? If therefore all creatures will live at one time^[e] and the creation will sustain them, it might even now be able to support all of them present at one time.”

⁴⁶ He said to me, “Ask a woman’s womb, and say to it, ‘If you bear ten^[f] children, why one after another?’ Request it therefore to produce ten at one time.”

⁴⁷ I said, “Of course it cannot, but only each in its own time.”

⁴⁸ He said to me, “Even so have I given the womb of the earth to those who from time to time are sown in it. ⁴⁹ For as an infant does not bring forth, and a woman who has become old does not bring forth any longer, so have I organized the world which I created.”

When and How Will the End Come?

⁵⁰ Then I inquired and said, “Since thou hast now given me the opportunity, let me speak before thee. Is our mother, of whom thou hast told me, still young? Or is she now approaching old age?”

⁵¹ He replied to me, “Ask a woman who bears children, and she will tell you. ⁵² Say to her, “Why are those whom you have borne recently not like those whom you bore before, but smaller in stature?‘ ⁵³ And she herself will answer you, ‘Those born in the strength of youth are different from those born during the time of old age, when the womb is failing.’ ⁵⁴ Therefore you also should consider that you and your contemporaries are smaller in stature than those who were before you, ⁵⁵ and those who come after you will be smaller than you, as born of a creation which already is aging and passing the strength of youth.”