Contemplative soul as daughter of Zion; beauty of true doctrines

And toward the sense, such a soul is daughter of Zion: just as the just woman is daughter of righteousness and the wise woman child of wisdom, so—since Zion is the Lookout—the looking-out and theoretically traversing soul would be called daughter of Zion. And what else would I rightly suppose her comeliness and dignity to be than the wealth of the holy doctrines of the truth contemplated with wisdom? Whenever, then, after acquiring comeliness and dignity, someone neglects both the holding-together of these and the increase of the divine wealth, the things that until then were her adornment flow away and go out. And rulers—those who led the word and guided unto the acquisition of the aforementioned comeliness—like rams that led the flock of sheep and do not find pasture, have themselves also stood in scarcity, having let go the attention of the things able to fatten, so to speak, both them and the sheep. For this reason, having grown weak, having been overtaken by the pursuer—who is our adversary the devil—they walk before him, driven wherever that one wishes to lead. If, however, the aforementioned daughter of Zion takes care of her beauty and her comeliness and foresight that the dignity be guarded, she despises and sneers at the king of the Assyrians, as we have learned from Isaiah saying: “The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and sneered at you.”