2 Esdras 2:1-3

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

God’s Judgment on Israel

2 “Thus says the Lord: I brought this people out of bondage, and I gave them commandments through my servants the prophets, but they would not listen to them and made my counsels void.^{(A) 2} The mother who bore them says to them, ‘Go, my children, because I am a widow and forsaken.^{(B) 3} I brought you up with gladness, but with mourning and sorrow I have lost you, because you have sinned before the Lord God and have done what is evil in my sight.^[a]