45
I said, "How have you said to your servant that you will certainly give life at one time to your creation? If therefore all creatures will live at one time 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."
48
He said to me, "Even so I have given the womb of the earth to those who from time to time are sown in it.
49
For as an infant does not bring forth, and a woman who has become old does not bring forth any longer, so I have made the same rule for the world that I created."
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.