2 Esdras 5:44

44 He answered, "The creation cannot move faster than the Creator. And besides, the world wouldn't have been able to hold all the people if everyone had been created at the same time."

2 Esdras 5:44 In-Context

42 He answered me, "The final judgment can be compared to a circle, and just as a circle has no beginning or end, so those who come early will not be too early, and those who come late will not be too late."

43 I replied, "But couldn't you have created all human beings, those of the past, the present, and the future, so that they would all live at the same time? In that way, you could have had your final judgment sooner."

44 He answered, "The creation cannot move faster than the Creator. And besides, the world wouldn't have been able to hold all the people if everyone had been created at the same time."

45 "Why, then," I asked, "did you just now tell me that one day you would bring back to life at the same time every creature that ever lived? If the world can hold them all then, it can hold them now."

46 He answered, "That would be like asking a woman who has given birth to ten children why she didn't have them all at once, instead of one at a time."