23. For your conscience knows that you, too, have repeatedly spoken evil of others.
24. I have tested everything in wisdom. I have said: "I will be wise." And wisdom withdrew farther from me,
25. so much more than it was before. Wisdom is very profound, so who shall reveal her?
26. I have examined all things in my soul, so that I may know, and consider, and seek out wisdom and reason, and so that I may recognize the impiety of the foolish, and the error of the imprudent.
27. And I have discovered a woman more bitter than death: she who is like the snare of a hunter, and whose heart is like a net, and whose hands are like chains. Whoever pleases God shall flee from her. But whoever is a sinner shall be seized by her.
28. Behold, Ecclesiastes said, I have discovered these things, one after another, in order that I might discover the explanation
29. which my soul still seeks and has not found. One man among a thousand, I have found; a woman among them all, I have not found.
30. This alone have I discovered: that God made man righteous, and yet he has adulterated himself with innumerable questions. Who is so great as the wise? And who has understood the meaning of the word?