2 Esdras 4:11-13

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

¹¹ how then can your mind comprehend the way of the Most High? And how can one who is already worn out^[a] by the corrupt world understand incorruption?’^[b] When I heard this, I fell on my face^{[c] 12} and said to him, ‘It would have been better for us not to be here than to come here and live in ungodliness, and to suffer and not understand why.’

Parable of the Forest and the Sea

¹³ He answered me and said, ‘I went into a forest of trees of the plain, and they made a plan