2 Esdras 5:45-47

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴⁵ I said, “How have you said to your servant that you^[a] will certainly give life at one time to your creation? If therefore all creatures will live at one time^[b] and the creation will sustain them, it might even now be able to support all of them present at one time.”

⁴⁶ He said to me, “Ask a woman’s womb, and say to it, ‘If you bear ten children, why one after another?’ Request it therefore to produce ten at one time.”

⁴⁷ I said, “Of course it cannot, but only each in its own time.”