2 Esdras 8:1-2

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

8 He answered me and said, “The Most High made this world for the sake of many but the world to come for the sake of only a few.^{(A) 2} But I tell you a parable, Ezra. Just as, when you ask the earth, it will tell you that it provides a large amount of clay from which earthenware is made but only a little dust from which gold comes, so is the course of the present world.^(B)