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In the thirtieth year after the destruction of our city, I Salathiel, who am also called Ezra, was in Babylon. I was troubled as I lay on my bed, and my thoughts welled up in my heart,
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because I saw the desolation of Zion and the wealth of those who lived in Babylon.
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My spirit was greatly agitated, and I began to speak anxious words to the Most High, and said,
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"O sovereign Lord, didst thou not speak at the beginning when thou didst form the earth -- and that without help -- and didst command the dust
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and it gave thee Adam, a lifeless body? Yet he was the workmanship of thy hands, and thou didst breathe into him the breath of life, and he was made alive in thy presence.
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And thou didst lead him into the garden which thy right hand had planted before the earth appeared.
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And thou didst lay upon him one commandment of thine; but he transgressed it, and immediately thou didst appoint death for him and for his descendants. From him there sprang nations and tribes, peoples and clans without number.
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And every nation walked after its own will and did ungodly things before thee and scorned thee, and thou didst not hinder them.
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But again, in its time thou didst bring the flood upon the inhabitants of the world and destroy them.
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And the same fate befell them: as death came upon Adam, so the flood upon them.