If then thou wilt suddenly and quickly destroy him who with so great labor was fashioned by thy command, to what purpose was he made?: This is the question Ezra has been leading up to since verse 8. A human being is physically and mentally complicated, requiring a great deal of God’s merciful attention. Why, Ezra asks, should he go to all this trouble to bring a person into existence and keep him alive and prepare him for living well, only to let him die? The text has an inherent contradiction between with so great labor (effort/work) and by thy command (created by your word), since we may presume it is not hard work for God to command a person to come into being. The focus here is not really on labor as much as on thought, attention, diligence, carefulness. The textual footnote in Revised Standard Version we understand as a translational matter, so it is not needed. Contemporary English Version provides the following helpful model for this verse:

• I ask you, Lord, if you carefully create everyone and then put them to death, why do you create them at all?

Other possible models are:

• If you destroy a human being suddenly and quickly whom you created with such effort, why then did you ever create him?

• You put so much effort into creating a human being, and then destroy him, suddenly and quickly. Why, then, did you ever create him?

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.