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."
48
He said to me, "Even so I have given the womb of the earth to those who from time to time are sown in it.
49
For as an infant does not bring forth, and a woman who has become old does not bring forth any longer, so I have made the same rule for the world that I created."
50
Then I inquired and said, "Since you have now given me the opportunity, let me speak before you. Is our mother, of whom you have told me, still young? Or is she now approaching old age?"
51
He replied to me, "Ask a woman who bears children, and she will tell you.