I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and traps, whose hands are chains. Whoever pleases God shall escape from her; but the sinner will be ensnared by her. “Behold, I have found this,” says the Preacher, “to one another, to find an explanation which my soul still seeks, but I have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all those. Behold, I have only found this: that God made mankind upright; but they search for many inventions.”
Traditional attribution
The text names “the Preacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem.” Solomon is the traditional identification.