Song of Solomon 6; Song of Solomon 7; Song of Solomon 8; Galatians 4

1 (5-17) Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou most beautiful among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside, and we will seek him with thee?

2 (6-1) My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the bed of aromatical spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.

3 (6-2) I to my beloved, and my beloved to me, who feedeth among the lilies.

4 (6-3) Thou art beautiful, O my love, sweet and comely as Jerusalem terrible as an army set in array.

5 (6-4) Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have made me flee away. Thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Galaad.

6 (6-5) Thy teeth as a flock of sheep, which come up from the washing, all with twins, and there is none barren among them.

7 (6-6) Thy cheeks are as the bark of a pomegranate, beside what is hidden within thee.

8 (6-7) There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and young maidens without number.

9 (6-8) One is my dove, my perfect one is but one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed: the queens and concubines, and they praised her.

10 (6-9) Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?

11 (6-10) I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flourished, and the pomegranates budded.

12 (6-11) I knew not: my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab.

13 (6-12) Return, return, O Sulamitess: return, return that we may behold thee.

1 What shalt thou see in the Sulamitess but the companies of camps? How beautiful are thy steps in shoes, O prince’s daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, that are made by the hand of a skilful workman.

2 Thy navel is like a round bowl never wanting cups. Thy belly is like a heap of wheat, set about with lilies.

3 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.

4 Thy neck as a tower of ivory. Thy eyes like the fishpools in Hesebon, which are in the gate of the daughter of the multitude. Thy nose is as the tower of Libanus, that looketh toward Damascus.

5 Thy head is like Carmel: and the hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels.

6 How beautiful art thou, and how comely, my dearest, in delights!

7 Thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.

8 I said: I will go up into the palm tree, and will take hold of the fruit thereof: and thy breasts shall be as the clusters of the vine: and the odour of thy mouth like apples.

9 Thy throat like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink, and for his lips and his teeth to ruminate.

10 I to my beloved, and his turning is towards me.

11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages.

12 Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vineyard flourish, if the flowers be ready to bring forth fruits, if the pomegranates flourish: there will I give thee my breasts.

13 The mandrakes give a smell. In our gates are all fruits: the new and the old, my beloved, I have kept for thee.

1 Who shall give thee to me for my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find thee without, and kiss thee, and now no man may despise me?

2 I will take hold of thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house: there thou shalt teach me, and I will give thee a cup of spiced wine and new wine of my pomegranates.

3 His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.

4 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up, nor awake my love till she please.

5 Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee.

6 Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames.

7 Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing.

8 Our sister is little, and hath no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to?

9 If she be a wall: let us build upon it bulwarks of silver: if she be a door, let us join it together with boards of cedar.

10 I am a wall: and my breasts are as a tower since I am become in his presence as one finding peace.

11 The peaceable had a vineyard, in that which hath people: he let out the same to keepers, every man bringeth for the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of silver.

12 My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for thee, the peaceable, and two hundred for them that keep the fruit thereof.

13 Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken: make me hear thy voice.

14 Flee away, O my beloved, and be like to the roe, and to the young hart upon the mountains of aromatical spices.

1 As long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all,

2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father.

3 So we also, when we were children, were serving under the elements of the world.

4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law:

5 That he might redeem them who were under the law: that we might receive the adoption of sons.

6 And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father.

7 Therefore, now he is not a servant, but a son. And if a son, an heir also through God.

8 But then indeed, not knowing God, you served them who, by nature, are not gods.

9 But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known by God: how turn you again to the weak and needy elements which you desire to serve again?

10 You observe days and months and times, and years.

11 I am afraid of you, lest perhaps I have laboured in vain among you.

12 Be ye as I, because I also am as you brethren, I beseech you. You have not injured me at all.

13 And you know how, through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel to you heretofore: and your temptation in my flesh

14 You despised not, nor rejected: but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

15 Where is then your blessedness? For I bear you witness that, if it could be done, you would have plucked out your own eyes and would have given them to me.

16 Am I then become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

17 They are zealous in your regard not well: but they would exclude you, that you might be zealous for them.

18 But be zealous for that which is good in a good thing always: and not only when I am present with you.

19 My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you.

20 And I would willingly be present with you now and change my voice: because I am ashamed for you.

21 Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, have you not read the law?

22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman and the other by a free woman.

23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh: but he of the free woman was by promise.

24 Which things are said by an allegory. For these are the two testaments. The one from Mount Sina, engendering unto bondage, which is Agar.

25 For Sina is a mountain in Arabia, which hath affinity to that Jerusalem which now is: and is in bondage with her children.

26 But that Jerusalem which is above is free: which is our mother.

27 For it is written: Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not: break forth and cry thou that travailest not: for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband.

28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

29 But as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was after the spirit: so also it is now.

30 But what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

31 So then, brethren, we are not the children of the bondwoman but of the free: by the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free.