Song of Songs 1; Song of Songs 2; Song of Songs 3; 2 Corinthians 12

Song of Songs 1

1 Solomon’s Song of Songs.

2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth— for your love is more delightful than wine.

3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you!

4 Take me away with you—let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers. We rejoice and delight in you ; we will praise your love more than wine. How right they are to adore you!

5 Dark am I, yet lovely, daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon.

6 Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I had to neglect.

7 Tell me, you whom I love, where you graze your flock and where you rest your sheep at midday. Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your friends?

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

9 I liken you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariot horses.

10 Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels.

11 We will make you earrings of gold, studded with silver.

12 While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance.

13 My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.

14 My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi.

15 How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves.

16 How handsome you are, my beloved! Oh, how charming! And our bed is verdant.

17 The beams of our house are cedars; our rafters are firs.

Song of Songs 2

1 I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.

2 Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women.

3 Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

4 Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love.

5 Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.

6 His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me.

7 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

8 Listen! My beloved! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills.

9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice.

10 My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.

11 See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

12 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.”

14 My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.

15 Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.

16 My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies.

17 Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the rugged hills.

Song of Songs 3

1 All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him.

2 I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my heart loves. So I looked for him but did not find him.

3 The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. “Have you seen the one my heart loves?”

4 Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go till I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the room of the one who conceived me.

5 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

6 Who is this coming up from the wilderness like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense made from all the spices of the merchant?

7 Look! It is Solomon’s carriage, escorted by sixty warriors, the noblest of Israel,

8 all of them wearing the sword, all experienced in battle, each with his sword at his side, prepared for the terrors of the night.

9 King Solomon made for himself the carriage; he made it of wood from Lebanon.

10 Its posts he made of silver, its base of gold. Its seat was upholstered with purple, its interior inlaid with love. Daughters of Jerusalem,

11 come out, and look, you daughters of Zion. Look on King Solomon wearing a crown, the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day his heart rejoiced.

2 Corinthians 12

1 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.

2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.

3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—

4 was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.

5 I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.

6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say,

7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.

8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

11 I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.

12 I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles.

13 How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!

14 Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

15 So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?

16 Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you. Yet, crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery!

17 Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent to you?

18 I urged Titus to go to you and I sent our brother with him. Titus did not exploit you, did he? Did we not walk in the same footsteps by the same Spirit?

19 Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening.

20 For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.

21 I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.