For then neither brother pities brother, nor man wife, nor children parents, nor friends friends, nor a slave his master; for he who is the adversary of men shall come up from Tartarus, and shall show men many things.
2What shall I make of thee, Esdras? and wilt thou yet plead with me?
3And the prophet said: Lord, I shall not cease to plead with Thee.
4And God said: Number the flowers of the earth.
5If thou shalt be able to number them, thou art able also to plead with me.
6And the prophet said: Lord, I cannot number them.
7I wear human flesh; but I shall not cease to plead with Thee.
8I wish, Lord, to see also the under parts of Tartarus.
9And God said: Come down and see.
10And He gave me Michael, and Gabriel, and other thirty-four angels; and I went down eighty-five steps, and they brought me down five hundred steps, and I saw a fiery throne, and an old man sitting upon it; and his judgment was merciless.
11And I said to the angels: Who is this? and what is his sin?
12And they said to me: This is Herod, who for a time was a king, and ordered to put to death the children from two years old and under.
13And I said: Woe to his soul!
14And again they took me down thirty steps, and I there saw boilings up of fire, and in them there was a multitude of sinners; and I heard their voice, but saw not their forms.
15And they took me down lower many steps, which I could not measure.
16And I there saw old men, and fiery pivots turning in their ears.
17And I said: Who are these? and what is their sin?
18And they said to me: These are they who would not listen.
19And they took me down again other five hundred steps, and I there saw the worm that sleeps not, and fire burning up the sinners.
20And they took me down to the lowest part of destruction, and I saw there the twelve plagues of the abyss.
21And they took me away to the south, and I saw there a man hanging by the eyelids; and the angels kept scourging him.
22And I asked: Who is this? and what is his sin?
23And Michael the commander said to me: This is one who lay with his mother; for having put into practice a small wish, he has been ordered to be hanged.
24And they took me away to the north, and I saw there a man bound with iron chains.
25And I asked: Who is this?
26And he said to me: This is he who said, I am the Son of God, that made stones bread, and water wine.
27And the prophet said: My lord, let me know what is his form, and I shall tell the race of men, that they may not believe in him.
28And he said to me: The form of his countenance is like that of a wild beast; his right eye like the star that rises in the morning, and the other without motion; his mouth one cubit; his teeth span long; his fingers like scythes; the track of his feet of two spans; and in his face an inscription, Antichrist.
29He has been exalted to heaven; he shall go down to Hades.
30At one time he shall become a child; at another, an old man.
31And the prophet said: Lord, and how dost Thou permit him, and he deceives the race of men?
32And God said: Listen, my prophet.
33He becomes both child and old man, and no one believes him that he is my beloved Son.
34And after this a trumpet, and the tombs shall be opened, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.
35Then the adversary, hearing the dreadful threatening, shall be hidden in outer darkness.
36Then the heaven, and the earth, and the sea shall be destroyed.
37Then shall I burn the heaven eighty cubits, and the earth eight hundred cubits.
38And the prophet said: And how has the heaven sinned?
39And God said: Since ...there is evil.
40And the prophet said: Lord, and the earth, how has it sinned?
41And God said: Since the adversary, having heard the dreadful threatening, shall be hidden, even on account of this will I melt the earth, and with it the opponent of the race of men.
42And the prophet said: Have mercy, Lord, upon the race of the Christians.
43And I saw a woman hanging, and four wild beasts sucking her breasts.
44And the angels said to me: She grudged to give her milk, but even threw her infants into the rivers.
45And I saw a dreadful darkness, and a night that had no stars nor moon; nor is there there young or old, nor brother with brother, nor mother with child, nor wife with husband.
46And I wept, and said: O Lord God, have mercy upon the sinners.
47And as I said this, there came a cloud and snatched me up, and carried me away again into the heavens.
48And I saw there many judgments; and I wept bitterly, and said: It is good for a man not to have come out of his mother's womb.
49And those who were in torment cried out, saying: Since thou hast come hither, O holy one of God, we have found a little remission.
50And the prophet said: Blessed are they that weep for their sins.
51And God said: Hear, O beloved Esdras.
52As a husbandman casts the seed of the corn into the ground, so also the man casts his seed into the parts of the woman.
53The first month it is all together; the second it increases in size; the third it gets hair; the fourth it gets nails; the fifth it is turned into milk; and the sixth it is made ready, and receives life; the seventh it is completely furnished; the ninth the barriers of the gate of the woman are opened; and it is born safe and sound into the earth.
54And the prophet said: Lord, it is good for man not to have been born.
55Woe to the human race then, when Thou shalt come to judgment!
56And I said to the Lord: Lord, why hast Thou created man, and delivered him up to judgment?
57And God said, with a lofty proclamation: I will not by any means have mercy on those who transgress my covenant.
58And the prophet said: Lord, where is Thy goodness?
59And God said: I have prepared all things for man's sake, and man does not keep my commandments.
60And the prophet said: Lord, reveal to me the judgments and paradise.
61And the angels took me away towards the east, and I saw the tree of life.
62And I saw there Enoch, and Elias, and Moses, and Peter, and Paul, and Luke, and Matthias, and all the righteous, and the patriarchs.
63And I saw there the keeping of the air within bounds, and the blowing of the winds, and the storehouses of the ice, and the eternal judgments.
64And I saw there a man hanging by the skull.
65And they said to me: This man removed landmarks.
66And I saw there great judgments.
67And I said to the Lord: O Lord God, and what man, then, who has been born has not sinned?
68And they took me lower down into Tartarus, and I saw all the sinners lamenting and weeping and mourning bitterly.
69And I also wept, seeing the race of men thus tormented.
70Then God says to me: Knowest thou, Esdras, the names of the angels at the end of the world?
71Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Gabuthelon, Aker, Arphugitonos, Beburos, Zebuleon.