Chapter 4
How Beautiful You Are, My Beloved
Bridegroom:
1 How beautiful you are, my beloved;
your beauty has achieved perfection.
Your eyes are doves
behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
streaming down the slopes of Mount Gilead.
2 Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes
that have come up from the washing.
Each one of them has a twin;
not a single one is unpaired with the other.
3 Your lips are like a scarlet thread,
and your mouth is lovely.
Your cheeks behind your veil
are like halves of a pomegranate.
4 Your neck is like the tower of David
built layer upon layer;
a thousand bucklers hang upon it,
all of them shields of valiant warriors.
5 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
young twins of a gazelle
that graze among the lilies.
6 Before the dawn comes,
and the shadows flee,
I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh
and the hill of frankincense.
7 You are all-beautiful, my love,
without the slightest blemish.
8 Come with me from Lebanon, my promised bride;
come with me from Lebanon.
Descend quickly from the heights of Amana,
from the peaks of Senir and Hermon,
from the dens of lions,
from the mountains of leopards.
9 You have stolen my heart,
my sister, my bride.
You have stolen my heart with a single glance,
with one jewel of your necklace.
10 How beautiful is your love,
my sister, my bride!
How much more delightful is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfumes than any spices.
11 Your lips drip with honey, my promised bride,
milk and honey are under your tongue,
and the fragrance of your garments
is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
12 You are an enclosed garden,
my sister, my promised bride;
you are a garden that is locked,
a fountain that is sealed.
13 You are like an orchard that brings forth pomegranates,
an orchard with the choicest fruits:
14 nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with all the incense-bearing trees,
myrrh and aloes
with all the finest spices.
15 You are a garden fountain,
a well of living water,
streams flowing down from Lebanon.
Bride:
16 Awake, north wind,
and come, south wind.
Blow upon my garden
so that its fragrance may spread abroad.
Let my beloved come to his garden
and eat its choicest fruits.
Footnotes
- Song of Songs 4:1
- Song of Songs 4:1
- Song of Songs 4:7
- Song of Songs 4:8
- Song of Songs 4:9
- Song of Songs 4:11
- Song of Songs 4:12
- Song of Songs 4:13
- Song of Songs 4:14
- Song of Songs 4:16
