Common English Bible

2 Esdras 4:11-17 Common English Bible (CEB)

11. How then can your mind contain the way of the Most High? How can a person who is already corrupted by the corrupt world understand the realm beyond corruption?"I fell on my face

12. and said to him, "It would have been better not to have come into being than to come here, live in the middle of wickedness, suffer, and not understand why."

13. He answered me: "I went forth to a forest of trees on the plain, and they devised a plan

14. and said: ‘Come, let’s go and make war on the sea so that it may recede before us, and let’s make for ourselves more forests.’

15. And likewise, the waves of the sea also formed a plan and said, ‘Come, let’s go up and subdue the forest on the plain so that there too we may complete another region for ourselves.’

16. But the plan of the forest came to naught, for fire came and consumed it.

17. Likewise also the plan of the waves of the sea, for the sand stood firm and prevented it.