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The King James Version Bible
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  9. 2 Esdras 10:7-22

2 Esdras 10:7-22

  1. How that Sion our mother is full of all heaviness, and much humbled, mourning very sore?

  2. And now, seeing we all mourn and are sad, for we are all in heaviness, art thou grieved for one son?

  3. For ask the earth, and she shall tell thee, that it is she which ought to mourn for the fall of so many that grow upon her.

  4. For out of her came all at the first, and out of her shall all others come, and, behold, they walk almost all into destruction, and a multitude of them is utterly rooted out.

  5. Who then should make more mourning than she, that hath lost so great a multitude; and not thou, which art sorry but for one?

  6. But if thou sayest unto me, My lamentation is not like the earth's, because I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth with pains, and bare with sorrows;

  7. But the earth not so: for the multitude present in it according to the course of the earth is gone, as it came:

  8. Then say I unto thee, Like as thou hast brought forth with labour; even so the earth also hath given her fruit, namely, man, ever since the beginning unto him that made her.

  9. Now therefore keep thy sorrow to thyself, and bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee.

  10. For if thou shalt acknowledge the determination of God to be just, thou shalt both receive thy son in time, and shalt be commended among women.

  11. Go thy way then into the city to thine husband.

  12. And she said unto me, That will I not do: I will not go into the city, but here will I die.

  13. So I proceeded to speak further unto her, and said,

  14. Do not so, but be counselled. by me: for how many are the adversities of Sion? be comforted in regard of the sorrow of Jerusalem.

  15. For thou seest that our sanctuary is laid waste, our altar broken down, our temple destroyed;

  16. Our psaltery is laid on the ground, our song is put to silence, our rejoicing is at an end, the light of our candlestick is put out, the ark of our covenant is spoiled, our holy things are defiled, and the name that is called upon us is almost profaned: our children are put to shame, our priests are burnt, our Levites are gone into captivity, our virgins are defiled, and our wives ravished; our righteous men carried away, our little ones destroyed, our young men are brought in bondage, and our strong men are become weak;