The Seductress (4Q184)

¹…speaks vanity

and…errors.

She is ever prompt to oil her words,

and she flatters with irony,

deriding with iniquitous l[ips].

Her heart is set up as a snare,

and her kidneys (affections) as a fowler’s nets.

[Her eyes] are defiled with iniquity,

her hands have seized hold of the Pit.

Her legs go down to work wickedness,

and to walk in wrong-doings.

Her…are foundations of darkness,

and a multitude of sins is in her wings.

Her…are horns (flying plagues?)

and her garments…

⁵Her clothes are shades of twilight,

and her ornaments plagues of the Pit.

Her couches are beds of corruption,

and her…depths of the Pit.

Her inns are couches of darkness,

and her dominions in the midst of the night.

She pitches her dwelling on the foundations of darkness

she abides in the tents of silence.

Amid everlasting fire is her inheritance,

not among those who shine brightly.

She is the beginning of all the ways of iniquity.

Woe (and) disaster to all who possess her!

And despoiled are all who hold her!

For her ways are ways of death,

and her paths are roads of sin,

and her tracks are pathways ¹⁰to iniquity,