w secretly to the wise: to morrow this
hour shalt thou begin to write.

2 Esdr 14:27
Then went I forth, as he commanded, and gathered all the
people together, and said,

2 Esdr 14:28
Hear these words, O Israel.

2 Esdr 14:29
Our fathers at the beginning were strangers in Egypt, from
whence they were delivered:

2 Esdr 14:30
And received the law of life, which they kept not, which ye
also have transgressed after them.

2 Esdr 14:31
Then was the land, even the land of Sion, parted among you by
lot: but your fathers, and ye yourselves, have done
unrighteousness, and have not kept the ways which the Highest
commanded you.

2 Esdr 14:32
And forasmuch as he is a righteous judge, he took from you in
time the thing that he had given you.

2 Esdr 14:33
And now are ye here, and your brethren among you.

2 Esdr 14:34
Therefore if so be that ye will subdue your own
understanding, and reform your hearts, ye shall be kept alive
and after death ye shall obtain mercy.

2 Esdr 14:35
For after death shall the judgment come, when we shall live
again: and then shall the names of the righteous be manifest,
and the works of the ungodly shall be declared.

2 Esdr 14:36
Let no man therefore come unto me now, nor seek after me
these forty days.

2 Esdr 14:37
So I took the five men, as he commanded me, and we went into
the field, and remained there.

2 Esdr 14:38
And the next day, behold, a voice called me, saying, Esdras,
open thy mouth, and drink that I give thee to drink.

2 Esdr 14:39
Then opened I my mouth, and, behold, he reached me a full
cup, which was full as it were with water, but the colour of it
was like fire.

2 Esdr 14:40
And I took it, and drank: and when I had drunk of it, my
heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for
my spirit strengthened my memory:

2 Esdr 14:41
And my mouth was opened, and shut no more.

2 Esdr 14:42
The Highest gave understanding unto the five men, and they
wrote the wonderful visions of the night that were told, which
they knew not: and they sat forty days, and they wrote in the
day, and at night they ate bread.

2 Esdr 14:43
As for me. I spake in the day, and I held not my tongue by
night.

2 Esdr 14:44
In forty days they wrote two hundred and four books.

2 Esdr 14:45
And it came to pass, when the forty days were filled, that
the Highest spake, saying, The first that thou hast written
publish openly, that the worthy and unworthy may read it