2 Esdras 8:5-7

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁵ For not of your own will did you come into the world,^[a] and against your will you depart, for you have been given only a short time to live.^{(A) 6} O Lord above us, grant to your servant that we may pray before you, and give us a seed for our heart and cultivation of our understanding so that fruit may be produced, by which every mortal who bears the likeness^[b] of a human may be able to live.^{(B) 7} For you alone exist, and we are a work of your hands, as you have declared.^(C)