2 Esdras 2:2-12

2 The mother who bore them says to them, `Go, my children, because I am a widow and forsaken.
3 I brought you up with gladness; but with mourning and sorrow I have lost you, because you have sinned before the Lord God and have done what is evil in my sight.
4 But now what can I do for you? For I am a widow and forsaken. Go, my children, and ask for mercy from the Lord.'
5 I call upon you, father, as a witness in addition to the mother of the children, because they would not keep my covenant,
6 that you may bring confusion upon them and bring their mother to ruin, so that they may have no offspring.
7 Let them be scattered among the nations, let their names be blotted out from the earth, because they have despised my covenant.
8 "Woe to you, Assyria, who conceal the unrighteous in your midst! O wicked nation, remember what I did to Sodom and Gomorrah,
9 whose land lies in lumps of pitch and heaps of ashes. So will I do to those who have not listened to me, says the Lord Almighty."
10 Thus says the Lord to Ezra: "Tell my people that I will give them the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I was going to give to Israel.
11 Moreover, I will take back to myself their glory, and will give to these others the everlasting habitations, which I had prepared for Israel.
12 The tree of life shall give them fragrant perfume, and they shall neither toil nor become weary.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the 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.