2 Esdras 10:8-10

Revised Standard Version

⁸ It is most appropriate to mourn now, because we are all mourning, and to be sorrowful, because we are all sorrowing; you are sorrowing for one son, but we, the whole world, for our mother.^{[a] 9} Now ask the earth, and she will tell you that it is she who ought to mourn over so many who have come into being upon her. ¹⁰ And from the beginning all have been born of her, and others will come; and behold, almost all go to perdition, and a multitude of them are destined for destruction.