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In the thirtieth year after the destruction of the city, I was in Babylon—I, Salathiel, who am also called Ezra. 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, did you not speak at the beginning when you planted the earth—and that without help—and commanded the dust
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and it gave you Adam, a lifeless body? Yet he was the creation of your hands, and you breathed into him the breath of life, and he was made alive in your presence.
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And you led him into the garden that your right hand had planted before the earth appeared.
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And you laid upon him one commandment of yours; but he transgressed it, and immediately you appointed 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; they did ungodly things in your sight and rejected your commands, and you did not hinder them.
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But again, in its time you brought the flood upon the inhabitants of the world and destroyed them.
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And the same fate befell all of them: just as death came upon Adam, so the flood upon them.
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But you left one of them, Noah with his household, and all the righteous who have descended from him.