Therefore if you forsake us, how much better it would have been for us if we also had been consumed in the burning of Zion!: The conjunction Therefore introduces a conclusion. Good News Bible and Contemporary English Version leave it implied. Forsake us may be rendered “abandon us” (Good News Bible) or even “leave us to ourselves.” The burning of Zion refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians just before the people were taken into exile. Zion refers to the city of Jerusalem (see the comments on 1 Esd 8.81). This whole sentence may be translated “If you abandon us, it would have been better if we had burned to death when they burned down Jerusalem.”

For we are no better than those who died there may be expressed as “because we are not better people than those who died there.”

And they wept with a loud voice: The people were desperate, so they started to cry loudly.

Then I answered them and said may be rendered simply “I answered” (Good News Bible) or “I replied.”

An alternative model for verses 44-45 is:

• 44 If you abandon us [or, leave us to ourselves], it would have been better if we had died in the fires that destroyed Jerusalem. 45 We are not better people than those who did die there.” Then they began to weep loudly.
I responded to them by saying….

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.