2 Esdras 10:10–14

¹⁰And from the beginning all have been born of her, and others will come; and behold, almost all go to perdition, and a multitude of them are destined for destruction. ¹¹Who then ought to mourn the more, she who lost so great a multitude, or you who are grieving for one? 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; ¹³but 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, ‘As you brought forth in sorrow, so the earth also has from the beginning given her fruit, that is, man, to him who made her.’