2 Esdras 9:18-20

Revised Standard Version

¹⁸ For there was a time in this age when I was preparing for those who now exist, before the world was made for them to dwell in, and no one opposed me then, for no one existed; ¹⁹ but now those who have been created in this world which is supplied both with an unfailing table and an inexhaustible pasture,^[a] have become corrupt in their ways. ²⁰ So I considered my world, and behold, it was lost, and my earth, and behold, it was in peril because of the devices of those who^[b] had come into it.