Song of Songs 1; Song of Songs 2; Song of Songs 3; Galatians 2

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Song of Songs 1

2 [Woman]If only he would give me some of his kisses . . . Oh, your loving is sweeter than wine!
3 Your fragrance is sweet; your very name is perfume. That's why the young women love you.
4 Take me along with you; let's run! My king has brought me into his chambers, saying, "Let's exult and rejoice in you. Let's savor your loving more than wine. No wonder they all love you!"
5 Dark am I, and lovely, daughters of Jerusalem— like the black tents of the Kedar nomads, like the curtains of Solomon's palace.
6 Don't stare at me because I'm darkened by the sun's gaze. My own brothers were angry with me. They made me a caretaker of the vineyards— but I couldn't care for my own vineyard.
7 Tell me, you whom I love with all my heart— where do you pasture your flock, where do you rest them at noon?— so I don't wander around with the flocks of your companions.
8 [Man]If you don't know your way, most beautiful of women, then follow the tracks of the herds and graze your little goats by the tents of the shepherds.
9 I picture you, my dearest, as a mare among Pharaoh's chariots!
10 Lovely are your cheeks, adorned with ear hoops; your neck, with beads.
11 Let's make hoops of gold beaded with silver for you!
12 With my king close by, my perfume filled the air.
13 A sachet of myrrh is my love to me, lying all night between my breasts.
14 A cluster of henna flowers is my love to me in the desert gardens of En-gedi.
15 [Man]Look at you—so beautiful, my dearest! Look at you—so beautiful! Your eyes are doves!
16 [Woman]Look at you—so beautiful, my love! Yes, delightful! Yes, our bed is lush and green!
17 The ceilings of our chambers are cedars; our rafters, cypresses.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible

Song of Songs 2

1 [Woman]I'm a rose of the Sharon plain, a lily of the valleys.
2 [Man]Like a lily among thornbushes, so is my dearest among the young women.
3 [Woman]Like an apple tree among the wild trees, so is my lover among the young men. In his shade I take pleasure in sitting, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
4 He has brought me to the house of wine; his banner raised over me is love.
5 Sustain me with raisin cakes, strengthen me with apples, for I'm weak with love!
6 His left arm is beneath my head, his right embraces me.
7 Make a solemn pledge, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild deer: Don't rouse, don't arouse love until it desires.
8 Listen! It's my lover: here he comes now, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.
9 My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Here he stands now, outside our wall, peering through the windows, peeking through the lattices.
10 My lover spoke and said to me, "Rise up, my dearest, my fairest, and go.
11 Here, the winter is past; the rains have come and gone.
12 Blossoms have appeared in the land; the season of singing has arrived, and the sound of the turtledove is heard in our land.
13 The green fruit is on the fig tree, and the grapevines in bloom are fragrant. Rise up, my dearest, my fairest, and go.
14 My dove—in the rock crevices, hidden in the cliff face— let me catch sight of you; let me hear your voice! The sound of your voice is sweet, and the sight of you is lovely."
15 Catch foxes for us— those little foxes that spoil vineyards, now that our vineyards are in bloom!
16 I belong to my lover and he belongs to me— the one grazing among the lilies.
17 Before the day breeze blows and the shadows flee, turn about, my love; be like a gazelle or a young stag upon the jagged mountains.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible

Song of Songs 3

1 [Woman]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.
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.
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.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible

Galatians 2

1 Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas, and I took Titus along also.
2 I went there because of a revelation, and I laid out the gospel that I preach to the Gentiles for them. But I did it privately with the influential leaders to make sure that I wouldn't be working or that I hadn't worked for nothing.
3 However, not even Titus, who was with me and who was a Greek, was required to be circumcised.
4 But false brothers and sisters, who were brought in secretly, slipped in to spy on our freedom, which we have in Christ Jesus, and to make us slaves.
5 We didn't give in and submit to them for a single moment, so that the truth of the gospel would continue to be with you.
6 The influential leaders didn't add anything to what I was preaching—and whatever they were makes no difference to me, because God doesn't show favoritism.
7 But on the contrary, they saw that I had been given the responsibility to preach the gospel to the people who aren't circumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.
8 The one who empowered Peter to become an apostle to the circumcised empowered me also to be one to the Gentiles.
9 James, Cephas, and John, who are considered to be key leaders, shook hands with me and Barnabas as equals when they recognized the grace that was given to me. So it was agreed that we would go to the Gentiles, while they continue to go to the people who were circumcised.
10 They asked only that we would remember the poor, which was certainly something I was willing to do.
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was wrong.
12 He had been eating with the Gentiles before certain people came from James. But when they came, he began to back out and separate himself, because he was afraid of the people who promoted circumcision.
13 And the rest of the Jews also joined him in this hypocrisy so that even Barnabas got carried away with them in their hypocrisy.
14 But when I saw that they weren't acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of everyone, "If you, though you're a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you require the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
15 We are born Jews—we're not Gentile sinners.
16 However, we know that a person isn't made righteous by the works of the Law but rather through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. We ourselves believed in Christ Jesus so that we could be made righteous by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the Law—because no one will be made righteous by the works of the Law.
17 But if it is discovered that we ourselves are sinners while we are trying to be made righteous in Christ, then is Christ a servant of sin? Absolutely not!
18 If I rebuild the very things that I tore down, I show that I myself am breaking the Law.
19 I died to the Law through the Law, so that I could live for God.
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God's Son, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I don't ignore the grace of God, because if we become righteous through the Law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible