2 Esdras 5:42-44

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

⁴² He said to me, ‘I shall liken my judgement to a circle;^[a] just as for those who are last there is no slowness, so for those who are first there is no haste.’

⁴³ Then I answered and said, ‘Could you not have created at one time those who have been and those who are and those who will be, so that you might show your judgement the sooner?’

⁴⁴ He replied to me and said, ‘The creation cannot move faster than the Creator, nor can the world hold at one time those who have been created in it.’