'For God loveth none but him who dwelleth with Wisdom.
'For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars; being compared with the light, she is found before it.
'For after this cometh the night,—but no evil can overcome Wisdom.'
Again:
'The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning.
'I was set up from Eternity, and of old before the earth was made.
'The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the fountains of the waters as yet sprung out:
'The mountains with their huge bulk had not yet been established; before the hills I was brought forth:
'He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world.
'When He prepared the heavens I was present; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths: