Others
13 Return, return, O Shulammite, return, return, that we may look upon you.
He
Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?
7:1 How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O noble daughter! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.2 Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies.3 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.4 Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus.5 Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses.
6 How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights!7 Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters.8 I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples,9 and your mouth like the best wine.
She
It goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth.
10 I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.
The Bride Gives Her Love
11 Come, my beloved,
let us go out into the fields
and lodge in the villages;
12 let us go out early to the vineyards
and see whether the vines have budded,
whether the grape blossoms have opened
and the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love.
13 The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
and beside our doors are all choice fruits,
new as well as old,
which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.
Longing for Her Beloved
8:1 Oh that you were like a brother to me
who nursed at my mother’s breasts!
If I found you outside, I would kiss you,
and none would despise me.
2 I would lead you and bring you
into the house of my mother—
she who used to teach me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
the juice of my pomegranate.
3 His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand embraces me!
4 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
that you not stir up or awaken love
until it pleases.
5 Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
leaning on her beloved?
Under the apple tree I awakened you.
There your mother was in labor with you;
there she who bore you was in labor.
6 Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the LORD.
7 Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.
Final Advice
Others
8 We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for?9 If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
She
10 I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace.
11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.12 My vineyard, my very own, is before me; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.
He
13 O you who dwell in the gardens, with companions listening for your voice; let me hear it.
She
14 Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices.
(ESV)
