Song of Songs 8

1 If only you, my beloved, had nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and no one would despise me.

2 I would take you and bring you into my mother’s house, into the private room of the woman who conceived me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranates.

3 His left hand is under my head, and his right arm will embrace me.

4 I make you swear, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field: why wake or stir up love until it wishes?

5 Who is this coming up clothed in white, leaning on her beloved?

Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother labored with you; there the woman who bore you labored in childbirth.

6 Set me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm, because love is as strong as death, and jealousy is as unyielding as Hades. Its wings are wings of fire—its flames.

7 Much water cannot extinguish love, and rivers cannot overwhelm it. If a man gave his entire livelihood for love, people would utterly despise him.

8 We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What will we do for our sister on the day when someone speaks for her?

9 If she is a wall, we will build silver battlements on her; if she is a door, we will carve a cedar plank upon her.

10 I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. So in his eyes I became like someone who finds peace.

11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon. He gave his vineyard to keepers; each man was to bring a thousand silver pieces for its fruit.

12 My vineyard is mine before me. The thousand are yours, Solomon, and two hundred belong to those who keep its fruit.

13 You who sit in the gardens, companions listen for your voice. Let me hear it.

14 Flee, my beloved! Be like a gazelle or a young deer on the mountains of spices.