In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider that God has made the one side by side with the other, so that man may not find out anything that shall be after him.
I have seen everything in the days of my vanity (my emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and futility): there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in [spite of] his evildoing.
Be not [morbidly exacting and externally] righteous overmuch, neither strive to make yourself [pretentiously appear] overwise--why should you [get puffed up and] destroy yourself [with presumptuous self-sufficiency]?
It is good that you should take hold of this and from that withdraw not your hand; for he who [reverently] fears and worships God will come forth from them all.
That which is is far off, and that which is deep is very deep--who can find it out [true wisdom independent of the fear of God]? [Job 28:12-28; I Cor. 2:9-16.]
I turned about [penitent] and my heart was set to know and to search out and to seek [true] wisdom and the reason of things, and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness [and what had led me into such wickedness and madness].
And I found that [of all sinful follies none has been so ruinous in seducing one away from God as idolatrous women] more bitter than death is the woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are bands. Whoever pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her.
Which I am still seeking but have not found--one upright man among a thousand have I found, but an upright woman among all those [one thousand in my harem] have I not found. [I Kings 11:3.]