Men of low degree are only a breath (emptiness), and men of [high] rank are a lie (delusion).
In the balances they go up [because they have no measurable weight or value];
They are together lighter than a breath.

Then I was senseless and ignorant;
I was like a beast before You.

A senseless man [in his crude and uncultivated state] knows nothing,
Nor does a [self-righteous] fool understand this:

I said to myself regarding the sons of men, “God is surely testing them in order for them to see that [by themselves, without God] they are [only] animals.”

Claiming to be wise, they became fools,

But are you willing to recognize, you foolish [spiritually shallow] person, that faith without [good] works is useless?

Would

“He catches the [so-called] wise in their own shrewdness,
And the advice of the devious is quickly thwarted.

“No doubt you are the [only wise] people [in the world],
And wisdom will die with you!

“But to man He said, ‘Behold, the reverential and worshipful fear of the Lord—that is wisdom;
And to depart from evil is understanding.’”

Surely I am more brutish and stupid than any man,
And I do not have the understanding of a man [for I do not know what I do not know].

Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty [conceited, self-important, exclusive], but associate with humble people [those with a realistic self-view]. Do not overestimate yourself.

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool [discarding his worldly pretensions and acknowledging his lack of wisdom], so that he may become [truly] wise.

Who among you is wise and intelligent? Let him by his good conduct show his [good] deeds with the gentleness and humility of true wisdom.

Man be

“What is man, that he should be pure and clean,
Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous and just?

I was brought forth in [a state of] wickedness;
In sin my mother conceived me [and from my beginning I, too, was sinful].

Among these [unbelievers] we all once lived in the passions of our flesh [our behavior governed by the sinful self], indulging the desires of human nature [without the Holy Spirit] and [the impulses] of the [sinful] mind. We were, by nature, children [under the sentence] of [God’s] wrath, just like the rest [of mankind].

A wild

“Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass?
Or does the ox low over his fodder?

“Who sent out the wild donkey free [from dependence on man]?
And who has loosed the bonds of the wild donkey [to survive in the wild],

Or [you have the untamed and reckless nature of] a wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,
That sniffs the wind in her passion [for the scent of a mate].
In her mating season who can restrain her?
No males seeking her need to weary themselves;
In her month they will find her [looking for them].

General references

The Lord knows the thoughts of man,
That they are a mere breath (vain, empty, futile).