22. Then I recovered my wits and I began again to speak words before the Most High:
23. Supreme Lord, you chose one vine from every forest on earth and from all its trees,
24. and from all this world’s lands you chose for yourself one region, and from all the world’s flowers you chose for yourself one lily,
25. and from all the ocean’s depths you filled for yourself one river, and from all cities that have been built you dedicated for yourself Zion,
26. and from all the created birds you named for yourself one dove, and from all the flocks that have been made you provided for yourself one sheep,
27. from all the peoples that have multiplied you acquired for yourself one people, and to this people that you desired you gave the Law celebrated by all.
28. Now, Lord, why did you give the one to the many? Why dishonor the one root above all the rest, and scatter your only one among the many?
29. Those who have denied your promises have trampled those who believed in your covenants!
30. If you really hate your people, they should be punished with your own hands.
31. When I had said these words, the angel who had come to me on the previous night was sent to me.
32. He said to me: "Listen to me, and I will instruct you; pay attention to me, and I will tell you more."
33. I said, "Speak, my Lord."He said to me, "Are you really more deeply disturbed over Israel, or do you love him more than the one who made him does?"
34. I said: "No, Lord, but I spoke in grief. My heart torments me every hour while I try to make sense of the Most High’s ways and investigate his decisions."
35. He said to me, "You can’t."And I said: "Why, Lord? Or else why was I born, and why did my mother’s womb not become my tomb so that I might not see the toil of Jacob and the exhaustion of the line of Israel?"
36. He said to me: "Count for me those who haven’t yet been born, gather for me the scattered raindrops, make the withered flowers bloom again for me,
37. open for me the closed warehouses and bring forth for me the winds shut up in them, or show me what a voice looks like. Then I will show you what you ask to see."
38. I said: "Supreme Lord, who can know these things except one who doesn’t live among human beings?