2 Esdras 10:10–14

¹⁰From the beginning all have been born of her, and others will come, and, behold, almost all walk to perdition, and a multitude of them will come to doom.^{* 11}Who, then, ought to mourn the more: she who lost so great a multitude or you who are grieving for one alone? ¹²But if you say to me, ‘My lamentation is not like the earth’s, for I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth in pain and bore in sorrow,^{* 13}but it is with the earth according to the way of the earth: the multitude that is now in it goes as it came,’ ¹⁴then I say to you, ‘Just as you brought forth in sorrow, so the earth also has from the beginning given her fruit, that is, humankind, to him who made her.’^*