Bible in Basic English
"And I saw a thing more bitter than death, even the woman whose heart is full of tricks and nets, and whose hands are as bands. He with whom God is pleased will get free from her, but the sinner will be taken by her."
— Ecclesiastes 7:26, Bible in Basic English
All this I have put to the test by wisdom; I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me.
Far off is true existence, and very deep; who may have knowledge of it?
I gave my mind to knowledge and to searching for wisdom and the reason of things, and to the discovery that sin is foolish, and that to be foolish is to be without one's senses.
And I saw a thing more bitter than death, even the woman whose heart is full of tricks and nets, and whose hands are as bands. He with whom God is pleased will get free from her, but the sinner will be taken by her.
Look! this I have seen, said the Preacher, taking one thing after another to get the true account,
For which my soul is still searching, but I have it not; one man among a thousand have I seen; but a woman among all these I have not seen.
This only have I seen, that God made men upright, but they have been searching out all sorts of inventions.