2 Esdras 5:39-41

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

³⁹ As for me, I am without wisdom, and how can I speak concerning the things that you have asked me?’

⁴⁰ He said to me, ‘Just as you cannot do one of the things that were mentioned, so you cannot discover my judgement, or the goal of the love that I have promised to my people.’

Why Successive Generations Have Been Created

⁴¹ I said, ‘Yet, O Lord, you have charge of those who are alive at the end, but what will those do who lived before me, or we, ourselves, or those who come after us?’