Song of Solomon 1; Song of Solomon 2; Song of Solomon 3; Galatians 2

1 The most beautiful song of Solomon.

2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Your expressions of love are better than wine,

3 better than the fragrance of cologne. (Cologne should be named after you.) No wonder the young women love you!

4 Take me with you. Let's run away. The king has brought me into his private rooms. We will celebrate and rejoice with you. We will praise your expressions of love more than wine. How right it is that the young women love you!

5 Young women of Jerusalem, I am dark and lovely like Kedar's tents, like Solomon's curtains.

6 Stop staring at me because I am so dark. The sun has tanned me. My brothers were angry with me. They made me the caretaker of the vineyards. I have not even taken care of my own vineyard.

7 Please tell me, you whom I love, where do you graze your flock? Where does your flock lie down at noon? [Tell me,] or I will be considered a prostitute [wandering] among the flocks of your companions.

8 If you do not know, most beautiful of women, follow the tracks of the flocks, and graze your young goats near the shepherds' tents.

9 My true love, I compare you to a mare among Pharaoh's stallions.

10 Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of pearls.

11 We will make gold ornaments with silver beads for you.

12 While the king is at his table, my perfume fills the air with its fragrance.

13 My beloved is a pouch of myrrh that lies at night between my breasts.

14 My beloved is a bouquet of henna flowers in the vineyards of En Gedi.

15 Look at you! You are beautiful, my true love! Look at you! You are so beautiful! Your eyes are like doves!

16 Look at you! You are handsome, my beloved, so pleasing to me! The leaf-scattered ground will be our couch.

17 The cedars will be the walls of our house. The cypress trees will be our rafters.

1 I am a rose of Sharon, a lily [growing] in the valleys.

2 Like a lily among thorns, so is my true love among the young women.

3 Like an apple tree among the trees in the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. I want to sit in his shadow. His fruit tastes sweet to me.

4 He leads me into a banquet room and looks at me with love.

5 Strengthen me with raisins and refresh me with apples because I am weak from love.

6 His left hand is under my head. His right hand caresses me.

7 Young women of Jerusalem, swear to me by the gazelles or by the does in the field that you will not awaken love or arouse love before its proper time.

8 I hear my beloved's voice. Look! Here he comes, sprinting over the mountains, racing over the hills.

9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, peeking through the window, looking through the lattice.

10 My beloved said to me, "Get up, my true love, my beautiful one, and come with me.

11 Look! The winter is past. The rain is over and gone.

12 Blossoms appear in the land. The time of the songbird has arrived. The cooing of the mourning dove is heard in our land.

13 The green figs ripen. The grapevines bloom and give off a fragrance. Get up, my true love, my beautiful one, and come with me.

14 My dove, in the hiding places of the rocky crevices, in the secret places of the cliffs, let me see your figure and hear your voice. Your voice is sweet, and your figure is lovely."

15 Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that ruin vineyards. Our vineyards are blooming.

16 My beloved is mine, and I am his. He is the one who grazes his flock among the lilies.

17 When the day brings a cooling breeze and the shadows flee, turn around, my beloved. Run like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains that separate us!

1 Night after night on my bed I looked for the one I love. I looked for him but did not find him.

2 I will get up now and roam around the city, in the streets, and in the squares. I will look for the one I love. I looked for him but did not find him.

3 The watchmen making their rounds in the city found me. [I asked,] "Have you seen the one I love?"

4 I had just left them when I found the one I love. I held on to him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house, into the bedroom of the one who conceived me.

5 Young women of Jerusalem, swear to me by the gazelles or by the does in the field, that you will not awaken love or arouse love before its proper time.

6 Who is this young woman coming up from the wilderness like clouds of smoke? She is perfumed with myrrh and incense made from the merchants' scented powders.

7 Look! Solomon's sedan chair! Sixty soldiers from the army of Israel surround it.

8 All of them are skilled in using swords, experienced in combat. Each one has his sword at his side and guards against the terrors of the night.

9 King Solomon had a carriage made for himself from the wood of Lebanon.

10 He had its posts made out of silver, its top out of gold, its seat out of purple fabric. Its inside--with inlaid scenes of love-- was made by the young women of Jerusalem.

11 Young women of Zion, come out and look at King Solomon! Look at his crown, the crown his mother placed on him on his wedding day, his day of joyful delight.

1 Then 14 years later I went to Jerusalem again with Barnabas. I also took Titus along.

2 I went in response to a revelation [from God]. I showed them the way I spread the Good News among people who are not Jewish. I did this in a private meeting with those recognized as important people to see whether all my efforts had been wasted.

3 Titus was with me, and although he is Greek, no one forced him to be circumcised.

4 False Christians were brought in. They slipped in as spies to learn about the freedom Christ Jesus gives us. They hoped to find a way to control us.

5 But we did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the Good News would always be yours.

6 Those who were recognized as important people didn't add a single thing to my message. (What sort of people they were makes no difference to me, since God doesn't play favorites.)

7 In fact, they saw that I had been entrusted with telling the Good News to people who are not circumcised as Peter had been entrusted to tell it to those who are circumcised.

8 The one who made Peter an apostle to Jewish people also made me an apostle to people who are not Jewish.

9 James, Cephas, and John (who were recognized as the most important people) acknowledged that God had given me this special gift. So they shook hands with Barnabas and me, agreeing to be our partners. It was understood that we would work among the people who are not Jewish and they would work among Jewish people.

10 The only thing they asked us to do was to remember the poor, the very thing which I was eager to do.

11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I had to openly oppose him because he was completely wrong.

12 He ate with people who were not Jewish until some men James had sent [from Jerusalem] arrived. Then Cephas drew back and would not associate with people who were not Jewish. He was afraid of those who insisted that circumcision was necessary.

13 The other Jewish Christians also joined him in this hypocrisy. Even Barnabas was swept along with them.

14 But I saw that they were not properly following the truth of the Good News. So I told Cephas in front of everyone, "You're Jewish, but you live like a person who is not Jewish. So how can you insist that people who are not Jewish must live like Jews?"

15 We are Jewish by birth, not sinners from other nations.

16 Yet, we know that people don't receive God's approval because of their own efforts to live according to a set of standards, but only by believing in Jesus Christ. So we also believed in Jesus Christ in order to receive God's approval by faith in Christ and not because of our own efforts. People won't receive God's approval because of their own efforts to live according to a set of standards.

17 If we, the same people who are searching for God's approval in Christ, are still sinners, does that mean that Christ encourages us to sin? That's unthinkable!

18 If I rebuild something that I've torn down, I admit that I was wrong to tear it down.

19 When I tried to obey the law's standards, those laws killed me. As a result, I live in a relationship with God. I have been crucified with Christ.

20 I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live I live by believing in God's Son, who loved me and took the punishment for my sins.

21 I don't reject God's kindness. If we receive God's approval by obeying laws, then Christ's death was pointless.