Common English Bible

2 Esdras 13:29-42 Common English Bible (CEB)

29. Look, the days are coming when the Most High will begin to rescue those who are on the earth.

30. Those who live on earth will go out of their minds.

31. They will plan to wage war against each other, city against city, place against place, nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

32. When these things happen, and the signs that I showed you before take place, then my Son will be revealed, whom you saw as a man rising up.

33. When all the nations hear his voice, then each one will leave its own region and will leave off the wars they were waging against each other.

34. An innumerable mob will be gathered together, as you saw, wanting to come and fight against him.

35. But he will take his stand on the summit of Mount Zion.

36. Zion will come and will appear to all, built and ready, as you saw a mountain carved without hands.

37. My Son himself will indict the assembled nations for their impious deeds—these things were indicated by the storm. He will scold them for their evil plans and reveal the torments with which they are about to be tortured. These things correspond to the flame.

38. He will destroy them without effort by the Law, which was indicated by the fire.

39. "As to the fact that you saw him collecting to himself another peaceful multitude,

40. these are the ten tribes that were taken captive from their land in the days of King Hoshea, whom King Shalmaneser of the Assyrians took across the river as a captive. They were taken into another land,

41. but they made this plan for themselves: They would leave the multitude of the nations and go into a more remote region, where the human race had never lived.

42. There they would be able to observe their customs, which they hadn’t kept in their own region.