14. If those who live don’t enter these narrow and empty places, they can’t receive the things that are in store.
15. Therefore, why are you disturbed, being corruptible, and why are you upset, being mortal?
16. Why haven’t you focused your mind on what is still to come, rather than on what is present?"
17. I answered: "Supreme Lord, you ordained in your Law that the just will inherit these things, but the impious will perish.
18. The just then can tolerate the narrow, hoping for the spacious, but those who have acted impiously endure the narrow and won’t see the spacious."
19. He said to me: “You aren’t a higher judge than God, nor more intelligent than the Most High.
20. Better that many of those now alive should perish than that the Law of God, which is laid out before them, be disregarded.
21. God commanded those who come into the world, after they came, what they needed to do to live, and what laws they should observe to avoid punishment.
22. But they weren’t persuaded and opposed him. They filled their heads with worthless thoughts,
23. and they invented excuses for their sins. They emphatically denied that the Most High exists, and they didn’t learn his ways.
24. They despised his Law and rejected his covenants. They weren’t faithful to his statutes, and didn’t perform the works he prescribed.
25. Therefore, Ezra, empty things are for the empty and full things for the full.
26. “Look! The time is coming when the signs appear that I told you about in advance, and the city will appear, appearing as a bride, and the land that is now hidden will be openly displayed.
27. Everyone who is rescued from the evils foretold will see my wonders.
28. My Son the anointed one will be revealed along with those who are with him, and those who remain will rejoice for four hundred years.
29. “After these years, my Son the anointed one and all who have human breath will die.
30. The world will be turned back to primeval silence for seven days, as in the earliest beginnings so that no one is left alive.
31. After seven days, the world that isn’t yet awake will be roused, and the corrupt world will die.