The Bride Longs for Affection

1 A Love Song Solomon’s Song of Songs.

2 The Woman Speaks to the Man She Loves Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth! Your love is better than wine.

3 The smell of your perfume is pleasant. Your name is pleasant like expensive perfume! That’s why the young women love you.

4 Take me with you; let’s run. The king takes me into his rooms. Friends Speak to the Man We will rejoice and be happy with you. We praise your love more than wine. The Woman Speaks With good reason, the young women love you, my lover.

5 I’m dark but lovely, women of Jerusalem. I’m dark like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

6 Don’t look at how dark I am, at how dark the sun has made me. My brothers were angry with me. They made me tend the vineyards. So I haven’t tended my own vineyard!

7 Tell me, you whom I love, where do you feed your sheep? Where do you make them rest at noon? Why should I look for you near your friend’s sheep? Am I like a woman who wears a veil?

8 The Man Speaks to the Woman You are the most beautiful of women. Surely you know to follow the sheep. Feed your young goats near the shepherds’ tents.

Expression of Mutual Love

9 My darling, you are like a mare that pulls the king’s chariots.

10 Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments. Your neck is beautiful with jewels.

11 We will make for you gold earrings with silver hooks.

12 The Woman Speaks The smell of my perfume spreads out to the king on his couch.

13 My lover is like a bag of myrrh that lies all night between my breasts.

14 My lover is like a bunch of flowers from the vineyards at En Gedi.

15 The Man Speaks My darling, you are beautiful! Oh, you are beautiful! Your eyes are like doves!

16 The Woman Answers the Man You are so handsome, my lover. You are so pleasant! Our bed is the grass.

17 The boards of our house are cedar trees. And the wood of our ceiling is juniper trees.