2 Esdras 12:42-51

42 For of all the prophets you alone are left to us, like a cluster of grapes from the vintage, and like a lamp in a dark place, and like a haven for a ship saved from a storm.
43 Are not the disasters that have befallen us enough?
44 Therefore if you forsake us, how much better it would have been for us if we also had been consumed in the burning of Zion.
45 For we are no better than those who died there." And they wept with a loud voice. Then I answered them and said,
46 "Take courage, O Israel; and do not be sorrowful, O house of Jacob;
47 for the Most High has you in remembrance, and the Mighty One has not forgotten you in your struggle.
48 As for me, I have neither forsaken you nor withdrawn from you; but I have come to this place to pray on account of the desolation of Zion, and to seek mercy on account of the humiliation of our sanctuary.
49 Now go to your homes, every one of you, and after these days I will come to you."
50 So the people went into the city, as I told them to do.
51 But I sat in the field seven days, as the angel had commanded me; and I ate only of the flowers of the field, and my food was of plants during those days.

Footnotes 2

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.