And they which did gainsay your promises, and believed not your covenants, have trodden them down. If you did so much hate your people, yet should you punish them with your own hands. Now when I had spoken these words, the angel that came to me the night afore was sent unto me, And said unto me, Hear me, and I will instruct you; hearken to the thing that I say, and I shall tell you more. And I said, Speak on, my Lord. Then said he unto me, You are sore troubled in mind for Israel's sake: do you love that people better than he that made them? And I said, No, Lord: but of very grief have I spoken: for my reins pain me every hour, while I labour to comprehend the way of the most High, and to seek out part of his judgment. And he said unto me, You cannot. And I said, Wherefore, Lord? whereunto was I born then? or why was not my mother's womb then my grave, that I might not have seen the travail of Jacob, and the wearisome toil of the stock of Israel? And he said unto me, Number me the things that are not yet come, gather me together the dross that are scattered abroad, make me the flowers green again that are withered, Open me the places that are closed, and bring me forth the winds that in them are shut up, show me the image of a voice: and then I will declare to you the thing that you labour to know. And I said, O Yah-Who-Ah that bears rule, who may know these things, but he that has not his dwelling with men? As for me, I am unwise: how may I then speak of these things whereof you ask me? Then said he unto me, Like as you can do none of these things that I have spoken of, even so can you not find out my judgment, or in the end the love that I have promised unto my people. And I said, Behold, O Lord, yet are you nigh unto them that be reserved till the end: and what shall they do that have been before me, or we that be now, or they that shall come after us? And he said unto me, I will liken my judgment unto a ring: like as there is no slackness of the last, even so there is no swiftness of the first. So I answered and said, Could you not make those that have been made, and be now, and that are for to come, at once; that you might show your judgment the sooner? Then answered he me, and said, The creature may not haste above the maker; neither may the world hold them at once that shall be created therein. And I said, As you have said unto your servant, that you, which give life to all, have given life at once to the creature that you have created, and the creature bare it: even so it might now also bear them that now be present at once. And he said unto me, Ask the womb of a woman, and say unto her, If you bring forth children, why do you not do it together, but one after another? pray her therefore to bring forth ten children at once. And I said, She cannot: but must do it by distance of time. Then said he unto me, Even so have I given the womb of the earth to those that be sown in it in their times. For like as a young child may not bring forth the things that belong to the aged, even so have I disposed the world which I created. And I asked, and said, Seeing you have now given me the way, I will proceed to speak before you: for our mother, of whom you have told me that she is young, draws now nigh unto age. He answered me, and said, Ask a woman that bears children, and she shall tell you. Say unto her, Wherefore are not they whom you have now brought forth like those that were before, but less of stature? And she shall answer you, They that be born in the strength of youth are of one fashion, and they that are born in the time of age, when the womb fails, are otherwise. Consider therefore also, how that you are less of stature than those that were before you. And so are they that come after you less than you, as the creatures which now begin to be old, and have passed over the strength of youth. Then said I, Lord, I beseech you, if I have found favour in your sight, show your servant by whom you visit your creature.
