Common English Bible

2 Esdras 7:120-127 Common English Bible (CEB)

120. What good is it to us that everlasting hope has been predicted for us, but we have utterly failed?

121. What good is it that safe and healthy dwelling places are reserved, but we have behaved badly?

122. What good is it that the glory of the Most High will protect those who have conducted themselves decently, but we have conducted ourselves indecently?

123. What good is it that paradise will be revealed, whose fruit remains uncorrupted, in which there is plenty and healing,

124. but we won’t enter it, for we have visited unseemly places?

125. What good is it that the faces of those who practiced abstinence will shine brighter than stars when our faces are blacker than darkness?

126. While we were alive and doing evil, we didn’t think about what we would suffer after death."

127. He answered: "These are the rules for the contest in which everyone born on earth takes part: