On the third day, Ezra sat under an oak tree. A voice came from a bush opposite him. "Ezra, Ezra."

He rose to his feet. "Here I am, Lord."

The voice from the bush was deliberate. Unmistakable. Because God was drawing a direct line between Ezra and Moses. "I revealed myself in a bush and spoke to Moses when my people were in bondage in Egypt. I sent him and led my people out. I led him up on Mount Sinai, where I kept him with me many days, and I told him many wondrous things, and showed him the secrets of the times, and declared to him the end of the times. Then I commanded him: 'These words you shall publish openly, and these you shall keep secret.'"

Now it was Ezra's turn.

God told him to lay up the signs, the dreams, the interpretations in his heart. He would be taken up from among men and live with God's chosen one and those like him until the times ended. The age had lost its youth. The times were growing old. Twelve parts the age was divided into, and nine had already passed, along with half of the tenth. Only two and a half parts remained.

"Set your house in order," God said. "Reprove your people. Comfort the lowly. Instruct the wise. Renounce the life that is corruptible. Cast away mortal thoughts. Hasten to escape from these times. For evils worse than what you have seen shall be done hereafter. The weaker the world becomes through old age, the more shall evils multiply."

Ezra had one concern. He would reprove those now living — but who would warn those born hereafter? "Your law has been burned," he said. "No one knows the things which have been done or will be done by you. Send the Holy Spirit into me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world from the beginning — the things which were written in your law — so that those who wish to live in the last days may find the path."

God agreed. He told Ezra to gather five scribes — Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ethanus, and Asiel — men trained to write rapidly. "I will light in your heart the lamp of understanding, which shall not be put out until what you are about to write is finished."

Ezra gathered the people one last time. He reminded them of their history: bondage in Egypt, deliverance, the law of life received and broken, the land of Zion given and forfeited through iniquity. "If you will rule over your minds and discipline your hearts, you shall be kept alive, and after death you shall obtain mercy. For after death the judgment will come, when we shall live again."

Then he said: "Let no one seek me for forty days."

He took the five scribes to the field. The next day, a voice called out: "Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink."

He opened his mouth. A full cup was offered to him. It looked like water but its color was like fire.

He drank it.

And when he had drunk, his heart poured forth understanding. Wisdom increased in his breast. His spirit retained its memory. His mouth was opened and was no longer closed. The five scribes wrote in characters they did not know, taking down what Ezra dictated without pause. He spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night.

Forty days. Ninety-four books.

When it was finished, God spoke one final time: "Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and the unworthy read them." These were the books of the Hebrew Bible — the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings — open to all.

"But keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge."

Seventy secret books. Containing wisdom too dangerous for the masses but too precious to lose. And Ezra — the man who drank liquid fire and spoke without ceasing for forty days — was the vessel through which all of it was preserved.