2 Esdras 9

1He answered me and said, “Measure carefully within yourself, and when you see that some part of the signs foretold has passed by,

2then you will understand that this is the time when the Most High will begin to visit the world that was made by him. And when a shaking of places is seen in the world,

3and confusion among peoples, thoughts among nations, instability among leaders, turmoil among rulers. Then you will understand that it was about these things that the Most High

4then you will understand that it was of these things that the Most High spoke from the days that were before, from the beginning.

5For just as everything that has come to be in the age has a beginning through an end, and the end is manifest,

6so also are the times of the Most High: beginnings made manifest in wonders and mighty works, and the end in deeds and signs.

7And it shall be that everyone who is saved, and who is able to escape by his works or by the faith in which he believed,

8will be left from the foretold dangers and will see my salvation in my land and within my borders, which I sanctified for myself from of old.

9Then those who now have abused my ways will be astonished, and those who cast them aside in contempt will remain in torments.

10For all who did not know me while they were alive, though they had received benefits,

11and all who despised my law while they still had freedom,

12and while a place of repentance was still open to them, they did not understand but scorned it; these must know it after death in torment.

13Therefore do not be curious any longer about how the ungodly will be tormented, but inquire how the righteous will be saved, and whose the age is, and for whose sake the age is, and when.

14I answered and said,

15“I have spoken before, and now I say, and I will say afterward: many more perish than will be saved,

16just as waves are multiplied beyond a drop.” And he answered me and said,

17He answered me and said, “As the field is, so also are the seeds; and as the flowers are, so also are the colors; and as the work is, so also is the creation; and as the farmer is, so also is the threshing floor. For there was a time of the age,”

18And then, when I was preparing for them—for those who now exist—before the age was made for them in which they would dwell, no one contradicted me.

19But those created in this prepared world, with an unfailing table and an unsearchable law, have been corrupted in their ways. And I considered my age, and behold,

20And I considered my world, and behold, it was ruined; and my inhabited world, and behold, it was in peril because of the schemes that had come into it.

21And I saw, and I spared them with very great difficulty, and I saved for myself one grape from the cluster, and one planting from a great forest.

22Let my grape and my planting be preserved, because I completed these with much labor. But if you still delay another seven days—

23But you shall not fast during them, but you shall go into a field of flowers, where

24Go into a field where no house has been built, and eat only the flowers of the field. You shall not taste meat, and you shall not drink wine, but only flowers. And pray to the Most High without ceasing, and

25I will come and speak with you. And I went out, as he told me, into the field that is called

26So I went, as he told me, into the field called Ardat, and I sat there among the flowers. I ate the herbs of the field, and their food satisfied me.

27And after seven days I was lying on the grass, and my heart again as before

28And my mouth was opened, and I began to speak before the Most High, and I said,

29O Lord, you showed yourself among us to our fathers in the wilderness, when they were coming out of Egypt and were entering the untrodden and fruitless desert,

30and you said, saying, ‘Hear me, O Israel, and give ear to my words, O seed of Jacob.’

31For behold, I sow my law in you, and it will bear fruit in you, and by it you will be glorified forever.’

32Yet our fathers, after receiving the law, did not keep it and did not observe my statutes. And the fruit of the law did not perish, for it could not, because it was yours.

33For those who received it perished, because they did not keep what had been sown in them. And behold, it is the custom that, when the earth has received seed,

34And behold, it is the custom that when the earth receives seed, or the sea a ship, or any other vessel food or drink,

35and when what was received is destroyed, these are destroyed, but the receptacles remain. For with us it has not happened so.

36For we indeed, who received the law, will perish because we sinned, and also our heart, which received it;

37For the law does not perish, but remains in its honor.”

38While I was speaking these things in my heart, I looked up with my eyes, and I saw a woman on the right side. And behold, she was mourning and weeping with a loud voice, and was deeply grieved in spirit. Her garments were torn, and ashes were on her head.

39Then I let go of the thoughts in which I had been thinking, and I turned to her and said,

40“Why are you weeping, and why are you grieved in spirit?” And she said to me:

41She said to me, “Leave me, my lord, so that I may weep for myself and add to my sorrow, for I am very bitter in spirit and greatly humbled.”

42And I said to her, “What has happened to you? Tell me.” And she said to me,

43She said to me, “I, your female servant, was barren and did not bear a child, though I had a husband for thirty years.”

44For every hour and every day throughout those thirty years I kept praying to the Most High night and day.

45And it happened after thirty years that God heard me, your female servant, and saw my humiliation, and paid attention to my distress, and gave me a son. And I rejoiced over him greatly, I and my husband and all my fellow citizens, and we greatly honored the Mighty One.

46And I raised him with much labor.

47And it happened, when he had grown up and I had come to take a wife for him, that I made a day of feasting.