2 Esdras 9:10-22

1. 10 For such as in their life have received benefits, and have not known me;

2. 11 And they that have loathed my law, while they had yet liberty, and, when as yet place of repentance was open unto them, understood not, but despised it;

3. 12 The same must know it after death by pain.

4. 13 And therefore be thou not curious how the ungodly shall be punished, and when: but enquire how the righteous shall be saved, whose the world is, and for whom the world is created.

5. 14 Then answered I and said,

6. 15 I have said before, and now do speak, and will speak it also hereafter, that there be many more of them which perish, than of them which shall be saved:

7. 16 Like as a wave is greater than a drop.

8. 17 And he answered me, saying, Like as the field is, so is also the seed; as the flowers be, such are the colours also; such as the workman is, such also is the work; and as the husbandman ls himself, so is his husbandry also: for it was the time of the world.

9. 18 And now when I prepared the world, which was not yet made, even for them to dwell in that now live, no man spake against me.

10. 19 For then every one obeyed: but now the manners of them which are created in this world that is made are corrupted by a perpetual seed, and by a law which is unsearchable rid themselves.

11. 20 So I considered the world, and, behold, there was peril because of the devices that were come into it.

12. 21 And I saw, and spared it greatly, and have kept me a grape of the cluster, and a plant of a great people.

13. 22 Let the multitude perish then, which was born in vain; and let my grape be kept, and my plant; for with great labour have I made it perfect.

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