Ezra’s Prayer of Complaint

In the thirtieth year after the destruction of the city, I was in Babylon—I, Salathiel, who am also called Ezra. I was troubled as I lay on my bed, and my thoughts welled up in my heart

“Yet you did not take away their evil heart from them, so that your law might produce fruit in them.

For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him.

Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the hearts of the people along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained.

in everything doing just as Adam and all his descendants had done, for they also had the evil heart.

Babylon Compared with Zion

“Then I said in my heart, Are the deeds of those who inhabit Babylon any better? Is that why it has gained dominion over Zion?

For when I came here I saw ungodly deeds without number, and my soul has seen many sinners during these thirty years. And my heart failed me

If you can solve one of them for me, then I will show you the way you desire to see and will teach you why the heart is evil.”

And he said to me, “If I had asked you, ‘How many dwellings are in the heart of the sea, or how many streams are at the source of the deep, or how many streams are above the firmament, or which are the exits of Hades, or which are the entrances of paradise?’

For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam’s heart from the beginning, and how much ungodliness it has produced until now—and will produce until the time of threshing comes!

Ezra’s Second Prayer of Complaint

After seven days the thoughts of my heart were very grievous to me again.

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 some part of his judgment.”

And they shall see those who were taken up, who from their birth have not tasted death, and the heart of the earth’s inhabitants shall be changed and converted to a different spirit.

Then on the eighth night my heart was troubled within me again, and I began to speak in the presence of the Most High.

For an evil heart has grown up in us that has alienated us from these and has brought us into corruption and the ways of death and has shown us the paths of perdition and removed us far from life—and that not merely for a few but for almost all who have been created.”

Ezra Again Appeals to God’s Mercy

I answered and said, “Then drink your fill of understanding, O my soul, and drink wisdom, O my heart.

O Lord above us, grant to your servant that we may pray before you, and give us a seed for our heart and cultivation of our understanding so that fruit may be produced, by which every mortal who bears the likeness of a human may be able to live.

and said in their hearts that there is no God—though they knew well that they must die.

After seven days, while I lay on the grass, my heart was troubled again as it was before.

For we who have received the law and sinned will perish, as well as our hearts that received it;

The Vision of a Weeping Woman

When I said these things in my heart, I looked around, and on my right I saw a woman; she was mourning and weeping with a loud voice and was deeply grieved at heart; her clothes were torn, and there were ashes on her head.

and said to her, “Why are you weeping, and why are you grieved at heart?”

While I was talking to her, her face suddenly began to shine exceedingly; her countenance flashed like lightning, so that I was too frightened to approach her, and my heart was terrified. While I was wondering what this meant,

“Therefore do not be afraid, and do not let your heart be terrified, but go in and see the splendor or the vastness of the building, as far as it is possible for your eyes to see it,

and you shall teach them to the wise among your people, whose hearts you know are able to comprehend and keep these secrets.