2 Esdras 5:50-52

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

When and How Will the End Come?

⁵⁰ Then I inquired and said, “Since you have now given me the opportunity, let me speak before you. Is our mother, of whom you have told me, still young, or is she now approaching old age?”^(A)

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?’^(B)