Song of Songs 4

A new wife

The young man:

1 How beautiful you are!

My best friend that I love, you are certainly very beautiful!

Your eyes behind your veil are like doves.

Your hair is like a group of goats.

It is like goats that are coming down Mount Gilead.

2 Your teeth are white like a group of sheep.

They are like sheep after someone has cut off their dirty wool.

They are like sheep that are coming out of the pool of water.

Each tooth is one of a pair. Not one of them is alone.

3 Your lips are like bright red strings.

Your mouth is lovely.

The sides of your face are round like the halves of a pomegranate.

Your veil hides them.

4 Your neck is like the beautiful, important tower that King David built.

The shields of 1,000 soldiers hang from the stones round it.

5 Your breasts are like two young gazelles that were born to their mother on the same day.

They walk slowly among the lilies and they eat the grass.

6 Until the dawn, I will go to the mountain of myrrh.

Until the shadows go, I will go to the hill with the lovely smell.

7 You are my best friend and I love you.

I find that every part of you is beautiful.

There is no part of you that is not lovely.

8 Come with me from Lebanon.

You are my new wife.

Come with me from Lebanon.

Come down from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir.

Come down from the highest part of Hermon.

Come away from the lions' homes,

and from the places in the mountains where there are leopards.

A wedding night

9 I love you so much that I never want to leave you.

You are my sister and my new wife.

When you looked at me, I knew that I wanted you more than anyone else.

I see one of the valuable stones that hang round your neck.

And then I know that you are the most valuable person to me.

10 Your love to me is certainly very good, my sister, my new wife.

It gives to me more pleasure than when I drink wine.

You have a smell that is more lovely than any spice!

11 Your lips taste sweet, my new wife.

They taste like honey that falls from the honeycomb.

Milk and honey are under your tongue.

The smell of your clothes is like the smell of Lebanon.

12 You are like a garden that you have locked up, my sister, and my new wife.

You are like a spring that someone has covered.

You are like a fountain that nobody has opened.

Water cannot rise from it.

13 Your garden is full of pomegranate trees with their sweet fruit.

There are fruits that many people like.

There are henna and nard.

14 There are nard, saffron, calamus and cinnamon.

There are many different plants that have lovely smells.

There are myrrh and aloes.

All the best spices are there.

15 You are like a fountain in a garden.

You are like a well that is full of water.

The water now comes quickly down from Lebanon.

The young woman:

16 Awake, north wind! Come, south wind!

Blow on my garden so that its lovely smell will move all over the place.

I really want the man that I love to come into his garden.

Let him taste the best fruits.