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

1 Solomon's Greatest Song.

2 Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, because your love is better than wine.

3 The smell of your perfume is pleasant, and your name is pleasant like expensive perfume. That's why the young women love you.

4 Take me with you; let's run together. The king takes me into his rooms. We will rejoice and be happy with you; we praise your love more than wine. With good reason, the young women love you.

5 I'm dark but lovely, women of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

6 Don't look at how dark I am, at how dark the sun has made me. My brothers were angry with me and made me tend the vineyards, so I haven't tended my own vineyard!

7 Tell me, you whom I love, where do you feed your sheep? Where do you let them rest at noon? Why should I look for you near your friend's sheep, like a woman who wears a veil?

8 You are the most beautiful of women. Surely you know to follow the sheep and feed your young goats near the shepherds' tents.

9 My darling, you are like a mare among the king's stallions.

10 Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments, and your neck with jewels.

11 We will make for you gold earrings with silver hooks.

12 The smell of my perfume spreads out to the king on his couch.

13 My lover is like a bag of myrrh that lies all night between my breasts.

14 My lover is like a bunch of flowers from the vineyards at En Gedi.

15 My darling, you are beautiful! Oh, you are beautiful, and your eyes are like doves.

16 You are so handsome, my lover, and so pleasant! Our bed is the grass.

17 Cedar trees form our roof; our ceiling is made of juniper wood.

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

2 Among the young women, my darling is like a lily among thorns!

3 Among the young men, my lover is like an apple tree in the woods! I enjoy sitting in his shadow; his fruit is sweet to my taste.

4 He brought me to the banquet room, and his banner over me is love.

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

6 My lover's left hand is under my head, and his right arm holds me tight.

7 Women of Jerusalem, promise me by the gazelles and the deer not to awaken or excite my feelings of love until it is ready.

8 I hear my lover's voice. Here he comes jumping across the mountains, skipping over the hills.

9 My lover is like a gazelle or a young deer. Look, he stands behind our wall peeking through the windows, looking through the blinds.

10 My lover spoke and said to me, "Get up, my darling; let's go away, my beautiful one.

11 Look, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

12 Blossoms appear through all the land. The time has come to sing; the cooing of doves is heard in our land.

13 There are young figs on the fig trees, and the blossoms on the vines smell sweet. Get up, my darling; let's go away, my beautiful one."

14 My beloved is like a dove hiding in the cracks of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff. Show me your face, and let me hear your voice. Your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.

15 Catch the foxes for us -- the little foxes that ruin the vineyards while they are in blossom.

16 My lover is mine, and I am his. He feeds among the lilies

17 until the day dawns and the shadows disappear. Turn, my lover. Be like a gazelle or a young deer on the mountain valleys.

1 At night on my bed, I looked for the one I love; I looked for him, but I could not find him.

2 I got up and went around the city, in the streets and squares, looking for the one I love. I looked for him, but I could not find him.

3 The watchmen found me as they patrolled the city, so I asked, "Have you seen the one I love?"

4 As soon as I had left them, I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go until I brought him to my mother's house, to the room where I was born.

5 Women of Jerusalem, promise me by the gazelles and the deer not to awaken or excite my feelings of love until it is ready.

6 Who is this coming out of the desert like a cloud of smoke? Who is this that smells like myrrh, incense, and other spices?

7 Look, it's Solomon's couchn with sixty soldiers around it, the finest soldiers of Israel.

8 These soldiers all carry swords and have been trained in war. Every man wears a sword at his side and is ready for the dangers of the night.

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

10 He made its posts of silver and its braces of gold. The seat was covered with purple cloth that the women of Jerusalem wove with love.

11 Women of Jerusalem, go out and see King Solomon. He is wearing the crown his mother put on his head on his wedding day, when his heart was happy!

1 After fourteen years I went to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas. I also took Titus with me.

2 I went because God showed me I should go. I met with the believers there, and in private I told their leaders the Good News that I preach to the non-Jewish people. I did not want my past work and the work I am now doing to be wasted.

3 Titus was with me, but he was not forced to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek.

4 We talked about this problem because some false believers had come into our group secretly. They came in like spies to overturn the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to make us slaves.

5 But we did not give in to those false believers for a minute. We wanted the truth of the Good News to continue for you.

6 Those leaders who seemed to be important did not change the Good News that I preach. (It doesn't matter to me if they were "important" or not. To God everyone is the same.)

7 But these leaders saw that I had been given the work of telling the Good News to those who are not Jewish, just as Peter had the work of telling the Jews.

8 God gave Peter the power to work as an apostle for the Jewish people. But he also gave me the power to work as an apostle for those who are not Jews.

9 James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be the leaders, understood that God had given me this special grace, so they accepted Barnabas and me. They agreed that they would go to the Jewish people and that we should go to those who are not Jewish.

10 The only thing they asked us was to remember to help the poor -- something I really wanted to do.

11 When Peter came to Antioch, I challenged him to his face, because he was wrong.

12 Peter ate with the non-Jewish people until some Jewish people sent from James came to Antioch. When they arrived, Peter stopped eating with those who weren't Jewish, and he separated himself from them. He was afraid of the Jews.

13 So Peter was a hypocrite, as were the other Jewish believers who joined with him. Even Barnabas was influenced by what these Jewish believers did.

14 When I saw they were not following the truth of the Good News, I spoke to Peter in front of them all. I said, "Peter, you are a Jew, but you are not living like a Jew. You are living like those who are not Jewish. So why do you now try to force those who are not Jewish to live like Jews?"

15 We were not born as non-Jewish "sinners," but as Jews.

16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God not by following the law, but by trusting in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we might be made right with God because we trusted in Christ. It is not because we followed the law, because no one can be made right with God by following the law.

17 We Jews came to Christ, trying to be made right with God, and it became clear that we are sinners, too. Does this mean that Christ encourages sin? No!

18 But I would really be wrong to begin teaching again those things that I gave up.

19 It was the law that put me to death, and I died to the law so that I can now live for God.

20 I was put to death on the cross with Christ, and I do not live anymore -- it is Christ who lives in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to save me.

21 By saying these things I am not going against God's grace. Just the opposite, if the law could make us right with God, then Christ's death would be useless.