The search
[Woman]
3 Upon my bed, night after night,
I looked for the one whom I love with all my heart.
I looked for him but couldn’t find him.[a]
2 “I will rise now and go all around the city,
through the streets and the squares.
I will look for the one whom I love with all my heart.”
I looked for him but couldn’t find him.
3 The guards found me,
those who make their rounds in the city.
“The one whom I love with all my heart—
have you seen him?”
4 No sooner did I depart from them
than I found the one whom I love with all my heart.
I held on to him and now I won’t let him go,
until I’ve brought him to my mother’s house,
to the chamber of the one who conceived me.
5 I place you under oath, daughters of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles or the wild deer:
don’t rouse, don’t arouse love
until it desires.
Visions of grandeur
6 Who is this, coming up from the wilderness,
like pillars of smoke?
She is perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
selected from all the spice merchant’s powders.
7 Picture Solomon’s bed—
sixty heroic men round about it,
all from the heroes of Israel,
8 all of them skilled with the sword,
expert in warfare,
each with his sword ready at his thigh
against terrors that come by night.
9 King Solomon made a canopied couch for himself
from the trees of Lebanon.
10 Its pillars he made of silver,
its covering, cloth of gold,
its cushions, royal purple;
its interior inlaid with love.
Daughters of Jerusalem, 11 go forth!
Look, daughters of Zion—
on King Solomon wearing the crown
with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his wedding,
on the day of his heart’s joy.
Footnotes
- Song of Solomon 3:1 LXX adds I called him, but he didn't answer me; cf 5:6.