Uriel took Ezra back to the beginning. Before the portals of the world were in place. Before the winds blew or thunder sounded. Before the innumerable hosts of angels were gathered. Before paradise was laid or its flowers were seen. "I planned these things," God said through the angel, "and they were made through me and not through another. Just as the end shall come through me and not through another."
Ezra wanted to know the timeline. When does this age end and the next one begin?
Uriel answered with a riddle. "Esau is the end of this age. Jacob is the beginning of the age that follows. For Jacob's hand held Esau's heel from the beginning — the beginning of a man is his hand, and the end of a man is his heel. Between the heel and the hand, seek for nothing else."
Then a voice spoke — not Uriel's voice, but a sound like many waters, shaking the foundations of the earth. It declared the signs of the end: books opened before the firmament for all to see. Infants a year old speaking aloud. Women giving birth at three months, the children living and dancing. Full storehouses found suddenly empty. A trumpet sounding. Friends making war on friends like enemies.
And then — salvation. Evil blotted out. Deceit quenched. The truth, so long without fruit, finally revealed.
Ezra fasted another seven days. When he spoke again, he recounted the entire creation and arrived at the question burning in him: "You said you created this world for Israel's sake. The other nations are like spittle, like a drop from a bucket. Yet those nations domineer over us and devour us. If the world was made for us, why do we not possess it?"
Uriel answered with parables. A sea whose entrance is narrow like a river — you cannot reach the broad part without passing through the narrow. A city full of good things, but the path runs between fire on one side and deep water on the other. "So also is Israel's portion. Unless the living pass through the difficult experiences, they can never receive what has been reserved for them."
Then Uriel revealed the fate of souls after death. The wicked wander in torment through seven ways of grief — seeing the reward of the righteous they will never share, watching angels guard the chambers of the blessed. The seventh way is worst: they waste away before the glory of the Most High, the God they scorned while alive.
The righteous rest in seven orders of joy. They overcame the evil thought formed with them. Their faces shine like the sun. They are made like the light of the stars, incorruptible. The seventh order is greatest: they behold the face of Him whom they served.
Then came the revelation that shook Ezra to his core. "My son the Messiah shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years. And after these years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath. The world shall be turned back to primeval silence for seven days, as it was at the first beginnings, so that no one shall be left."
After the silence: resurrection. The earth giving up its dead. The Most High revealed upon the seat of judgment. No sun, no moon, no stars, no wind, no darkness, no morning — only the splendor of God's glory, by which all shall see what has been determined for them.
Ezra was devastated. "The world to come will bring delight to few, but torments to many. An evil heart has grown up in us." He cried out against Adam: "Though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants."
Uriel did not flinch. "This is the contest which every person born on earth shall wage. If defeated, they suffer what you described. If victorious, they receive what I described. This is the way of which Moses spoke: 'Choose for yourself life, that you may live' (Deuteronomy 30:19). But they did not believe him."
Ezra tried one last argument — that God is called merciful, patient, bountiful. That if God did not pardon, not one ten-thousandth of humanity could survive. Uriel's final word: "I will rejoice over the few who shall be saved, because it is they who have made my glory to prevail. And I will not grieve over the multitude of those who perish, for they are like a mist — set on fire and burned hotly, and extinguished."