1. The angel replied, “God Most High made this world for many people, but the future world for only a few.
2. Ezra, let me give you an illustration. If you ask the earth, it will tell you that it produces a large amount of clay for pots but only a small amount of gold dust. And that's how it is with the present world:
3. many have been created, but only a few will be saved.”
4. I said to myself, “I must search for wisdom and try to understand.
5. I was brought into this world without my consent, and I will leave it against my will. God has given me only a few short years as my span of life.”
6. Then I prayed, “O Lord above, permit me, your humble servant, to offer this prayer: Sow a seed within us, and let it grow until it produces new hearts and minds, so that sinful humanity may have life.
7. For you alone are God, and you created all of us, as the scripture says.
8. You give life and provide arms and legs to the body formed in the womb, where it is kept safe in the elements of fire and water. The body which you form is carried in the womb for nine months,
9. and you alone provide safety for the protecting womb and the protected body. Then when the womb delivers what was created in it,
10. your command produces milk from the breasts of the human body.
11. The infant you created is fed in this way for a while, and then you continue to provide your mercy.
12. You bring a person up in your righteousness, teach him your Law, and discipline him with your wisdom.
13. You are his Creator, and, as you wish, you can take away his life or allow him to live.
14. But if you are so ready to destroy a person that was so carefully created at your command, why was he created in the first place?”
15. “Now, Lord, I must say this: You may know what is best with regard to the rest of human race, but I mourn for your own people —
16. I am disturbed and grieved for your own nation Israel, the descendants of Jacob.
17. So I want to pray for them and for myself, because I can see how all of us who live on this earth have failed,
18. and I know that judgement will soon come upon us.