2 Esdras 3–5

Ezra’s Prayer of Complaint

³In 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^{* 2}because I saw the desolation of Zion and the wealth of those who lived in Babylon. ³My spirit was greatly agitated, and I began to speak anxious words to the Most High and said, ⁴“O sovereign Lord, did you not speak at the beginning when you planted^b the earth—and that without help—and commanded the dust^{c 5}and it gave you Adam, a lifeless body? Yet he was the creation of your hands, and you breathed into him the breath of life, and he was made alive in your presence.^{* 6}And you led him into the garden that your right hand had planted before the earth appeared.^{* 7}And you laid upon him one commandment of yours, but he transgressed it, and immediately you appointed death for him and for his descendants. From him there sprang nations and tribes, peoples and clans without number.^{* 8}And every nation walked after its own will; they did ungodly things in your sight and rejected your commands, and you did not hinder them.^{* 9}But again, in its time you brought the flood upon the inhabitants of the world and destroyed them.^{* 10}And the same fate befell all of them: just as death came upon Adam, so the flood upon them. ¹¹But you left one of them, Noah with his household, and all the righteous who have descended from him.^*

¹²“When those who lived on earth began to multiply, they produced children and peoples and many nations, and again they began to be more ungodly than were their ancestors. ¹³And when they were committing iniquity in your sight, you chose for yourself one of them, whose name was Abraham;^{* 14}you loved him, and to him alone you revealed the end of the times, secretly by night.^{* 15}You made an everlasting covenant with him and promised him that you would never forsake his descendants, and you gave him Isaac, and to Isaac you gave Jacob and Esau.^{* 16}You set apart Jacob for yourself, but Esau you rejected, and Jacob became a great multitude.^{* 17}And when you led his descendants out of Egypt, you brought them to Mount Sinai.^{* 18}You bent down the heavens and shook^d the earth and moved the world and caused the depths to tremble and troubled the times.^{* 19}Your glory passed through the four gates of fire and earthquake and wind and ice, to give the law to the descendants of Jacob and your commandment to the posterity of Israel.^*

²⁰“Yet you did not take away their evil heart from them, so that your law might produce fruit in them.^{* 21}For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him.^{* 22}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.^{* 23}So the times passed and the years were completed, and you raised up for yourself a servant named David.^{* 24}You commanded him to build a city for your name and there to offer you oblations from what is yours.^{* 25}This was done for many years, but the inhabitants of the city transgressed, ²⁶in everything doing just as Adam and all his descendants had done, for they also had the evil heart. ²⁷So you handed over your city to your enemies.

Babylon Compared with Zion

²⁸“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? ²⁹For when I came here I saw ungodly deeds without number, and my soul has seen many sinners during these thirty years.^e And my heart failed me ³⁰because I have seen how you endure those who sin and have spared those who act wickedly and have destroyed your people and have protected your enemies^{* 31}and have not shown to anyone how your way may be comprehended.^f Are the deeds of Babylon better than those of Zion? ³²Or has another nation known you besides Israel? Or what tribes have so believed the covenants as these tribes of Jacob? ³³Yet their reward has not appeared, and their labor has borne no fruit. For I have traveled widely among the nations and have seen that they abound in wealth, though they are unmindful of your commandments. ³⁴Now 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.^{* 35}When have the inhabitants of the earth not sinned in your sight? Or what nation has kept your commandments so well? ³⁶You may indeed find individuals who have kept your commandments, but nations you will not find.”^*

Limitations of the Human Mind

⁴Then the angel that had been sent to me, whose name was Uriel, answered^{* 2}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?”^{* 3}Then I said, “Yes, my lord.” And he replied to me, “I have been sent to show you three ways and to put before you three problems.^{* 4}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.”

⁵I said, “Speak, my lord.”

And he said to me, “Go, weigh for me the weight of fire, or measure for me a blast^g of wind, or call back for me the day that is past.”^*

⁶I answered and said, “Who of those that have been born can do that, that you should ask me about such things?”

⁷And 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^h of paradise?’^{* 8}perhaps you would have said to me, ‘I never went down into the deep, nor as yet into Hades, neither did I ever ascend into heaven.’^{* 9}But now I have asked you only about fire and wind and the day, things that you have experienced and from which you cannot be separated, and you have given me no answer about them.”^{* 10}He said to me, “You cannot understand the things with which you have grown up; ¹¹how, then, can your mind comprehend the way of the Most High?ⁱ And how can one who is already worn out by the corrupt world understand incorruption?”^j When I heard this, I fell on my face^{k* 12}and said to him, “It would have been better for us not to be here than to come here and live in ungodliness and to suffer and not understand why.”^*

Parable of the Forest and the Sea

¹³He answered me and said, “I went into a forest of trees of the plain, and they made a plan^{* 14}and said, ‘Come, let us go and make war against the sea, so that it may recede before us and so that we may make for ourselves more forests.’ ¹⁵In like manner the waves of the sea also made a plan and said, ‘Come, let us go up and subdue the forest of the plain so that there also we may gain more territory for ourselves.’ ¹⁶But the plan of the forest was in vain, for the fire came and consumed it;^{* 17}likewise also the plan of the waves of the sea was in vain,^l for the sand stood firm and blocked it.^{* 18}If now you were a judge between them, which would you undertake to justify and which to condemn?”

¹⁹I answered and said, “Each made a foolish plan, for the land has been assigned to the forest and the locale of the sea a place to carry its waves.”^*

²⁰He answered me and said, “You have judged rightly, but why have you not judged so in your own case? ²¹For as the land has been assigned to the forest and the sea to its waves, so also those who inhabit the earth can understand only what is on the earth, and he who is^m above the heavens can understand what is above the height of the heavens.”^*

The New Age Will Make All Things Clear

²²Then I answered and said, “I implore you, my lord, whyⁿ have I been endowed with the power of understanding? ²³For I did not wish to inquire about the ways above but about those things that we daily experience: why Israel has been given over to the nations in disgrace; why the people whom you loved has been given over to godless tribes and the law of our ancestors has been brought to destruction and the written covenants no longer exist.^{* 24}We pass from the world like locusts, and our life is like a mist,^o and we are not worthy to obtain mercy.^{* 25}But what will he do for his^p name that is invoked over us? It is about these things that I have asked.”^*

²⁶He answered me and said, “If you are alive, you will see, and if you live long,^q you will often marvel, because the age is hurrying swiftly to its end.^{* 27}It will not be able to bring the things that have been promised to the righteous in their appointed times, because this age is full of sadness and infirmities.^{* 28}For the evil about which you ask me has been sown, but the harvest of it has not yet come. ²⁹If therefore that which has been sown is not reaped, and if the place where the evil has been sown does not pass away, the field where the good has been sown will not come. ³⁰For 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!^{* 31}Consider now for yourself how much fruit of ungodliness a grain of evil seed has produced. ³²When heads of grain without number are sown, how great a threshing floor they will fill!”

When Will the New Age Come?

³³Then I answered and said, “How long?^r When will these things be? Why are our years few and evil?”^{* 34}He answered me and said, “Do not be in a greater hurry than the Most High. You, indeed, are in a hurry for yourself,^s but the Highest is in a hurry on behalf of many.^{* 35}Did not the souls of the righteous in their chambers ask about these matters, saying, ‘How long are we to remain here?^t And when will the harvest of our reward come?’^{* 36}And the archangel Jeremiel answered and said, ‘When the number of those like yourselves^u is completed, for he has weighed the age in the balance,^{* 37}and measured the times by measure, and numbered the times by number,…