20. Behold, I will go, as you have commanded me, and reprove the people that now be: but they that shall be born afterward, who shall admonish them? for the world is set in darkness, and they that dwell therein are without light.
21. For your law is burned, therefore no man knows the things that are done of you, or the works that shall be done.
22. But if I have found favor before you, send the Holy Spirit to me, and I shall write all that has been done in the world since the beginning, even the things that were written in your law, that men may be able to find the path, and that they which would live in the latter days may live.
23. And he answered me and said, Go your way, gather the people together, and say to them, that they seek you not for forty days.
24. But look you prepare you many tablets, and take with you Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ethanus, and Asiel, these five, which are ready to write swiftly;
25. and come here, and I shall light a lamp of understanding in your heart, which shall not be put out, till the things be ended which you shall write.
26. And when you have done, some things shall you publish openly, and some things shall you deliver in secret to the wise: tomorrow this hour shall you begin to write.
27. Then went I forth, as he commanded me, and gathered all the people together, and said,
28. Hear these words, O Israel.
29. Our fathers at the beginning were strangers in Egypt, and they were delivered from thence,
30. and received the law of life, which they kept not, which you⌃ also have transgressed after them.
31. Then was the land, even the land of Sion, given you for a possession: but you⌃ yourselves, and your fathers, have done unrighteousness, and have not kept the ways which the Most High commanded you.
32. And forasmuch as he is a righteous judge, he took from you for a while the thing that he had given you.
33. And now you⌃ are here, and your brethren are among you.
34. Therefore if so be that you⌃ will rule over your own understanding, and instruct your hearts, you⌃ shall be kept alive, and after death you⌃ shall obtain mercy.
35. For after death shall the judgement come, when we shall live again: and then shall the names of the righteous be manifest, and the works of the ungodly shall be declared.
36. Let no man therefore come to me now, nor seek after me these forty days.
37. So I took the five men, as he commanded me, and we went forth into the field, and remained there.
38. And it came to pass on the morrow that, behold, a voice called me, saying, Esdras, open your mouth, and drink that I give you to drink.
39. Then opened I my mouth, and, behold, there was reached to me a full cup, which was full as it were with water, but the color of it was like fire.