1. And when I had made an end of speaking these words, there was sent to me the angel which had been sent to me the nights before:
2. and he said to me, Up, Esdras, and hear the words that I am come to tell you.
3. And I said, Speak on, my Lord. Then he said to me, There is a sea set in a wide place, that it might be broad and vast.
4. But the entrance thereof shall be set in a narrow place so as to be like a river;
5. whoso then should desire to go into the sea to look upon it, or to rule it, if he went not through the narrow, how could he come into the broad?
6. Another thing also: There is a city builded and set in a plain country, and full of all good things;
7. but the entrance thereof is narrow, and is set in a dangerous place to fall, having a fire on the right hand, and on the left a deep water:
8. and there is one only path between them both, even between the fire and the water, so small that there could but one man go there at once.
9. If this city now be given to a man for an inheritance, if the heir pass not the danger before him, how shall he receive his inheritance?
10. And I said, It is so, Lord. Then said he to me, Even so also is Israel’s portion.
11. Because for their sakes I made the world: and when Adam transgressed my statutes, then was decreed that now is done.
12. Then were the entrances of this world made narrow, and sorrowful and toilsome: they are but few and evil, full of perils, and charged with great toils.