That is an exciting passage, which appears to picture
something like the catching away:
“And they shall see the men who
were taken up, who from their birth have not
tasted death;”
You also mentioned:
My own
carefully-developed conclusion is that this passage is
scripture, and all of 2 Esdras could be. It's
consistent with the rest of the Bible, it was quoted by
Jesus, and it claims to be the word of God. The
reasons it was removed from the canon are beyond the
scope of this post, but if one just reads the book, it's
not too hard to figure out why it's been generally
suppressed.
If I have read things
correctly, rabbis had debated whether 2 Esdras should be
considered scripture or not.
Apparently, the history of
the development of the Hebrew canon, seems to more often
consider it, like the books of Maccabees.
Good for them to read, but
not inspired scripture.
It did seem to be included
in the old Latin Vetus, but Jerome, when he worked on
the Vulgate, didn’t consider it part of the canon.
Similar to the rabbis,
many churches considered the apocryphal books to be good
reading, but not inspired scripture.
They were included as an
intertestamental section in the King James.
The Cambridge King James
had cross references which sometimes were to lines in
the apocryphal books.
The Cambridge King James
that I have, still has those cross references, but no
longer includes the apocrypha between the testaments.
At the Council of Trent,
the Catholic church said that some apocryphal books
should be considered part of the canon.
But they did not include 2
Esdras as one of them.
I think that some Orthodox
churches may consider 2 Esdras as canonical.
Also, the quote debate
also considers that later copies of 2 Esdras quoted
Jesus from Matthew.
Rather than Jesus quoting
from 2 Esdras from the time of the captivity.