Song of Solomon 4; Song of Solomon 5; Galatians 3

1 Look at you! You are beautiful, my true love. Look at you! You are so beautiful. Your eyes behind your veil are like doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down Mount Gilead.

2 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep about to be sheared, sheep that come up from the washing. All of them bear twins, and not one has lost its young.

3 Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like slices of pomegranate.

4 Your neck is like David's beautifully-designed tower. A thousand round shields belonging to soldiers are hung on it.

5 Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin gazelles grazing among the lilies.

6 When the day brings a cool breeze and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of incense.

7 You are beautiful in every way, my true love. There is no blemish on you.

8 You will come with me from Lebanon, from Lebanon as my bride. You will travel with me from the peak of Mount Amana, from the mountain peaks in Senir and Hermon, from the lairs of lions, from the mountains of leopards.

9 My bride, my sister, you have charmed me. You have charmed me with a single glance from your eyes, with a single strand of your necklace.

10 How beautiful are your expressions of love, my bride, my sister! How much better are your expressions of love than wine and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice.

11 Your lips drip honey, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The fragrance of your clothing is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

12 My bride, my sister is a garden that is locked, a garden that is locked, a spring that is sealed.

13 You are paradise that produces pomegranates and the best fruits, henna flowers and nard,

14 nard and saffron, calamus, cinnamon, and all kinds of incense, myrrh, aloes, and all the best spices.

15 [You are] a spring for gardens, a well of living water flowing from Lebanon.

16 Awake, north wind! Come, south wind! Blow on my garden! Let its spices flow from it. Let my beloved come to his garden, and let him eat his own precious fruit.

1 My bride, my sister, I will come to my garden. I will gather my myrrh with my spice. I will eat my honeycomb with my honey. I will drink my wine with my milk. Eat, my friends! Drink and become intoxicated with expressions of love!

2 I sleep, but my mind is awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking. Open to me, my true love, my sister, my dove, my perfect one. My head is wet with dew, my hair with the dewdrops of night.

3 I have taken off my clothes! Why should I put them on [again]? I have washed my feet! Why should I get them dirty [again]?

4 My beloved put his hand through the keyhole. My heart throbbed for him.

5 I got up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers were drenched with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock.

6 I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away. He was gone! I almost died when he left. I looked for him, but I did not find him. I called for him, but he did not answer me.

7 The watchmen making their rounds in the city found me. They struck me! They wounded me! Those watchmen on the walls took my robe from me!

8 Young women of Jerusalem, swear to me that if you find my beloved you will tell him I am hopelessly lovesick.

9 Most beautiful of women, what makes your beloved better than any other beloved? What makes your beloved better than any other beloved that you make us swear this way?

10 My beloved is dazzling yet ruddy. He stands out among 10,000 men.

11 His head is the finest gold. His hair is wavy, black as a raven.

12 His eyes are set like doves bathing in milk.

13 His cheeks are like a garden of spices, a garden that produces scented herbs. His lips are lilies that drip with myrrh.

14 His hands are disks of gold set with emerald. His chest is a block of ivory covered with sapphires.

15 His legs are columns of marble set on bases of pure gold. His form is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars.

16 His mouth is sweet in every way. Everything about him is desirable! This is my beloved, and this is my friend, young women of Jerusalem.

1 You stupid people of Galatia! Who put you under an evil spell? Wasn't Christ Jesus' crucifixion clearly described to you?

2 I want to learn only one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by your own efforts to live according to a set of standards or by believing what you heard?

3 Are you that stupid? Did you begin in a spiritual way only to end up doing things in a human way?

4 Did you suffer so much for nothing? [I doubt] that it was for nothing!

5 Does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you through your own efforts or through believing what you heard?

6 Abraham serves as an example. He believed God, and that faith was regarded by God to be his approval of Abraham.

7 You must understand that people who have faith are Abraham's descendants.

8 Scripture saw ahead of time that God would give his approval to non-Jewish people who have faith. So Scripture announced the Good News to Abraham ahead of time when it said, "Through you all the people of the world will be blessed."

9 So people who believe are blessed together with Abraham, the man of faith.

10 Certainly, there is a curse on all who rely on their own efforts to live according to a set of standards because Scripture says, "Whoever doesn't obey everything that is written in Moses' Teachings is cursed."

11 No one receives God's approval by obeying the law's standards since, "The person who has God's approval will live by faith."

12 Laws have nothing to do with faith, but, "Whoever obeys laws will live because of the laws he obeys."

13 Christ paid the price to free us from the curse that God's laws bring by becoming cursed instead of us. Scripture says, "Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed."

14 [Christ paid the price] so that the blessing promised to Abraham would come to all the people of the world through Jesus Christ and we would receive the promised Spirit through faith.

15 Brothers and sisters, let me use an example from everyday life. No one can cancel a person's will or add conditions to it once that will is put into effect.

16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture doesn't say, "descendants," referring to many, but "your descendant," referring to one. That descendant is Christ.

17 This is what I mean: The laws [given to Moses] 430 years after God had already put his promise [to Abraham] into effect didn't cancel the promise [to Abraham].

18 If we have to gain the inheritance by following those laws, then it no longer comes to us because of the promise. However, God freely gave the inheritance to Abraham through a promise.

19 What, then, is the purpose of the laws given to Moses? They were added to identify what wrongdoing is. Moses' laws did this until the descendant to whom the promise was given came. It was put into effect through angels, using a mediator.

20 A mediator is not used when there is only one person involved, and God has acted on his own.

21 Does this mean, then, that the laws given to Moses contradict God's promises? That's unthinkable! If those laws could give us life, then certainly we would receive God's approval because we obeyed them.

22 But Scripture states that the whole world is controlled by the power of sin. Therefore, a promise based on faith in Jesus Christ could be given to those who believe.

23 We were kept under control by Moses' laws until this faith came. We were under their control until this faith which was about to come would be revealed.

24 Before Christ came, Moses' laws served as our guardian. Christ came so that we could receive God's approval by faith.

25 But now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the control of a guardian.

26 You are all God's children by believing in Christ Jesus.

27 Clearly, all of you who were baptized in Christ's name have clothed yourselves with Christ.

28 There are neither Jews nor Greeks, slaves nor free people, males nor females. You are all the same in Christ Jesus.

29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants and heirs, as God promised.