2 Esdras

2 Esdras (also called 4 Esdras, Latin Esdras, or Latin Ezra) is the name of an apocalyptic book in some English versions of the Bible. Tradition ascribes it to Ezra, a scribe and priest of the 5th century BCE, but scholarship places its composition between 70 and 218 CE. It is reckoned among the apocrypha by Roman Catholics, Protestants, and most Eastern Orthodox Christians. 2 Esdras was excluded by Jerome from his Vulgate version of the Old Testament, but from the 9th century onwards the Latin text is sporadically found as an appendix to the Vulgate, inclusion becoming more general after the 13th century.

Chapter 7

 * Then were the entrances of this world amde narrow, full of sorrow and travail: they are but few and evil, full of perils, and very painful For the entrances of the elder world were wide and sure, and brought immortal fruit. If then they that live labour not to enter these strait and van things, they can never receive those that are laid up for them.
 * NRSV, 7:12-14
 * You are not a better judge than the LORD, or wiser than the Most High!
 * NRSV, 7:19
 * When the Most High made the world and Adam and all who have come from him, he first prepared the judgment and the things that pertain to the judgment.
 * NRSV, 7:70

Chapter 14

 * For the world hath lost his youth, and the times begin to wax old.
 * 2 Esdras (NRSV), 14:10