37
open for me the closed chambers, and bring out for me the winds shut up in them, or show me the picture of a voice; and then I will explain to you the travail that you ask to understand."
38
I said, "O sovereign Lord, who is able to know these things except him whose dwelling is not with mortals?
39
As for me, I am without wisdom, and how can I speak concerning the things that you have asked me?"
40
He said to me, "Just as you cannot do one of the things that were mentioned, so you cannot discover my judgment, or the goal of the love that I have promised to my people."
41
I said, "Yet, O Lord, you have charge of those who are alive at the end, but what will those do who lived before me, or we, ourselves, or those who come after us?"
42
He said to me, "I shall liken my judgment to a circle; just as for those who are last there is no slowness, so for those who are first there is no haste."
43
Then I answered and said, "Could you not have created at one time those who have been and those who are and those who will be, so that you might show your judgment the sooner?"
44
He replied to me and said, "The creation cannot move faster than the Creator, nor can the world hold at one time those who have been created in it."
45
I said, "How have you said to your servant that you will certainly give life at one time to your creation? If therefore all creatures will live at one time and the creation will sustain them, it might even now be able to support all of them present at one time."
46
He said to me, "Ask a woman's womb, and say to it, "If you bear ten children, why one after another?' Request it therefore to produce ten at one time."
47
I said, "Of course it cannot, but only each in its own time."