He answered and said to me, “He is the Son of God, whom they confessed in the world.” So I began to praise those who had stood valiantly for the name of the Lord.

But again, in its time you brought the flood upon the inhabitants of the world and destroyed them.

Now therefore weigh in a balance our iniquities and those of the inhabitants of the world, and it will be found which way the arrow of the scale tips.

and said to me, “Your understanding has utterly failed regarding this world, and do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High?”

how, then, can your mind comprehend the way of the Most High? And how can one who is already worn out by the corrupt world understand incorruption?” When I heard this, I fell on my face

and from all the lands of the world you have chosen for yourself one region, and from all the flowers of the world you have chosen for yourself one lily,

He said to me, “At the beginning of the circle of the earth, before the portals of the world were in place, and before the assembled winds blew,

“It shall be that whoever remains after all that I have foretold to you shall be saved and shall see my salvation and the end of my world.

And so the entrances of this world were made narrow and sorrowful and toilsome; they are few and evil, full of dangers and involved in great hardships.

But the entrances of the greater world are broad and safe and yield the fruit of immortality.

How long the Most High has been patient with those who inhabit the world!—and not for their sake but because of the times that he has foreordained.”

He answered me and said, “This present world is not the end; the glory of God does not remain in it; therefore those who were strong prayed for the weak.

He answered me and said, “The Most High made this world for the sake of many but the world to come for the sake of only a few.

But I tell you a parable, Ezra. Just as, when you ask the earth, it will tell you that it provides a large amount of clay from which earthenware is made but only a little dust from which gold comes, so is the course of the present world.

For not of your own will did you come into the world, and against your will you depart, for you have been given only a short time to live.

“For just as the farmer sows many seeds in the ground and plants a multitude of seedlings and yet not all that have been sown will come up in due season and not all that were planted will take root, so also those who have been sown in the world will not all be saved.”

So when there shall appear in the world earthquakes, tumult of peoples, intrigues of nations, wavering of leaders, confusion of princes,

So I considered my world and saw that it was lost. I saw that my earth was in peril because of the devices of those who had come into it.

And as for her telling you that she was barren for thirty years, the reason is that there were three thousand years in the world before any offering was offered in it.

Moreover, this head gained control of the whole earth and with much oppression dominated its inhabitants; it had greater power over the world than all the wings that had gone before.

‘Are you not the one that remains of the four beasts that I had made to reign in my world, so that the end of my times might come through them?

For his right hand that bends the bow is strong, and his arrows that he shoots are sharp, and when they are shot to the ends of the world they will not miss once.