2 Esdras 3–5

Chapter 3

¹In the thirtieth year after the destruction of our city, I Salathiel, who am also called Ezra, was in Babylon. I was troubled as I lay on my bed, and my thoughts welled up in my heart, ²because 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, didst thou not speak at the beginning when thou didst form the earth—and that without help—and didst command the dust ⁵and it gave thee Adam, a lifeless body? Yet he was the workmanship of thy hands, and thou didst breathe into him the breath of life, and he was made alive in thy presence. ⁶And thou didst lead him into the garden which thy right hand had planted before the earth appeared. ⁷And thou didst lay upon him one commandment of thine; but he transgressed it, and immediately thou didst appoint death for him and for his descendants. From him there sprang nations and tribes, peoples and clans without number. ⁸And every nation walked after its own will and did ungodly things before thee and scorned thee, and thou didst not hinder them. ⁹But again, in its time thou didst bring the flood upon the inhabitants of the world and destroy them. ¹⁰And the same fate befell them: as death came upon Adam, so the flood upon them. ¹¹But thou didst leave one of them, Noah with his household, and all the righteous who have descended from him.

¹²“When those who dwelt 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 before thee, thou didst choose for thyself one of them, whose name was Abraham; ¹⁴and thou didst love him, and to him only didst thou reveal the end of the times, secretly by night. ¹⁵Thou didst make with him an everlasting covenant, and promise him that thou wouldst never forsake his descendants; and thou gavest to him Isaac, and to Isaac thou gavest Jacob and Esau. ¹⁶And thou didst set apart Jacob for thyself, but Esau thou didst reject; and Jacob became a great multitude. ¹⁷And when thou didst lead his descendants out of Egypt, thou didst bring them to Mount Sinai. ¹⁸Thou didst bend down the heavens and shake the earth, and move the world, and make the depths to tremble, and trouble the times. ¹⁹And thy glory passed through the four gates of fire and earthquake and wind and ice, to give the law to the descendants of Jacob, and thy commandment to the posterity of Israel.

²⁰“Yet thou didst not take away from them their evil heart, so that thy law might bring forth fruit in them. ²¹For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. ²²Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the people’s heart along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained. ²³So the times passed and the years were completed, and thou didst raise up for thyself a servant, named David. ²⁴And thou didst command him to build a city for thy name, and in it to offer thee oblations from what is thine. ²⁵This was done for many years; but the inhabitants of the city transgressed, ²⁶in everything doing as Adam and all his descendants had done, for they also had the evil heart. ²⁷So thou didst deliver the city into the hands of thy enemies.

²⁸“Then I said in my heart, Are the deeds of those who inhabit Babylon any better? Is that why she 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. And my heart failed me, ³⁰for I have seen how thou dost endure those who sin, and hast spared those who act wickedly, and hast destroyed thy people, and hast preserved thy enemies, ³¹and hast not shown to any one how thy way may be comprehended. Are the deeds of Babylon better than those of Zion? ³²Or has another nation known thee besides Israel? Or what tribes have so believed thy 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 thy commandments. ³⁴Now therefore weigh in a balance our iniquities and those of the inhabitants of the world; and so it will be found which way the turn of the scale will incline. ³⁵When have the inhabitants of the earth not sinned in thy sight? Or what nation has kept thy commandments so well? ³⁶Thou mayest indeed find individual men who have kept thy commandments, but nations thou wilt not find.”

Chapter 4

¹Then the angel that had been sent to me, whose name was Uriel, answered ²and said to me, “Your understanding has utterly failed regarding this world, and do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High?” ³Then 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. ⁴If you can solve one of them for me, I also will show you the way you desire to see, and will teach you why the heart is evil.”

⁵I said, “Speak on, my lord.”

And he said to me, “Go, weigh for me the weight of fire, or measure for me a measure 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 this, that you ask me concerning these 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 hell, or which are the entrances of paradise?’ ⁸Perhaps you would have said to me, ‘I never went down into the deep, nor as yet into hell, neither did I ever ascend into heaven.’ ⁹But now I have asked you only about fire and wind and the day, things through which you have passed and without which you cannot exist, and you have given me no answer about them!” ¹⁰And 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? And how can one who is already worn out by the corrupt world understand incorruption?” When I heard this, I fell on my face ¹²and said to him, “It would be better for us not to be here than to come here and live in ungodliness, and to suffer and not understand why.”

¹³He answered me and said, “I went into a forest of trees of the plain, and they made a plan ¹⁴and said, ‘Come, let us go and make war against the sea, that it may recede before us, and that we may make for ourselves more forests.’ ¹⁵And in 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; ¹⁷likewise also the plan of the waves of the sea, for the sand stood firm and stopped them. ¹⁸If now you were a judge between them, which would you undertake to justify, and which to condemn?”

¹⁹I answered and said, “Each has made a foolish plan, for the land is assigned to the forest, and to the sea is assigned 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 is assigned to the forest and the sea to its waves, so also those who dwell upon earth can understand only what is on the earth, and he who is above the heavens can understand what is above the height of the heavens.”

²²Then I answered and said, “I beseech you, my lord, why have I been endowed with the power of understanding? ²³For I did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience: why Israel has been given over to the Gentiles as a reproach; why the people whom you loved has been given over to godless tribes, and the law of our fathers has been made of no effect and the written covenants no longer exist; ²⁴and why we pass from the world like locusts, and our life is like a mist, and we are not worthy to obtain mercy. ²⁵But what will he do for his name, by which we are called? 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, you will often marvel, because the age is hastening swiftly to its end. ²⁷For 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. ²⁸For 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! ³¹Consider 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!”

³³Then I answered and said, “How long and when will these things be? Why are our years few and evil?” ³⁴He answered me and said, “You do not hasten faster than the Most High, for your haste is for yourself, but the Highest hastens on behalf of many. ³⁵Did not the souls of the righteous in their chambers ask about these matters, saying, ‘How long are we to remain here? And when will come the harvest of our reward? ³⁶And Jeremiel the archangel answered them and said, ‘When the number of those like yourselves is completed; for he has weighed the age in the balance, ³⁷and measured the times by measure, and numbered the times by number; and he will not move or arouse them until that measure is fulfilled.’ ”

³⁸Then I answered and…