Song of Songs 4

• 1. How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are like doves. Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats frisking down the slopes of Gilead.
• 2. Your teeth are as white as sheep, newly shorn and washed. They are perfectly matched; not one is missing.
• 3. Your lips are like a ribbon of scarlet. Oh, how beautiful your mouth! Your cheeks behind your veil are like pomegranate halves--lovely and delicious.
• 4. Your neck is as stately as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes.
• 5. Your breasts are like twin fawns of a gazelle, feeding among the lilies.
• 6. Before the dawn comes and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.
• 7. You are so beautiful, my beloved, so perfect in every part.
• 8. "Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. Come down from the top of Mount Amana, from Mount Senir and Mount Hermon, where lions have their dens and panthers prowl.
• 9. You have ravished my heart, my treasure, my bride. I am overcome by one glance of your eyes, by a single bead of your necklace.
• 10. How sweet is your love, my treasure, my bride! How much better it is than wine! Your perfume is more fragrant than the richest of spices.
• 11. Your lips, my bride, are as sweet as honey. Yes, honey and cream are under your tongue. The scent of your clothing is like that of the mountains and the cedars of Lebanon.
• 12. "You are like a private garden, my treasure, my bride! You are like a spring that no one else can drink from, a fountain of my own.
• 13. You are like a lovely orchard bearing precious fruit, with the rarest of perfumes:
• 14. nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, myrrh and aloes, perfume from every incense tree, and every other lovely spice.
• 15. You are a garden fountain, a well of living water, as refreshing as the streams from the Lebanon mountains."
• 16. Awake, north wind! Come, south wind! Blow on my garden and waft its lovely perfume to my lover. Let him come into his garden and eat its choicest fruits.

Song of Songs 5

• 1. I am here in my garden, my treasure, my bride! I gather my myrrh with my spices and eat my honeycomb with my honey. I drink my wine with my milk. Oh, lover and beloved, eat and drink! Yes, drink deeply of this love!
• 2. One night as I was sleeping, my heart awakened in a dream. I heard the voice of my lover. He was knocking at my bedroom door. `Open to me, my darling, my treasure, my lovely dove, he said, `for I have been out in the night. My head is soaked with dew, my hair with the wetness of the night.
• 3. "But I said, `I have taken off my robe. Should I get dressed again? I have washed my feet. Should I get them soiled?'
• 4. "My lover tried to unlatch the door, and my heart thrilled within me.
• 5. I jumped up to open it. My hands dripped with perfume, my fingers with lovely myrrh, as I pulled back the bolt.
• 6. I opened to my lover, but he was gone. I yearned for even his voice! I searched for him, but I couldn't find him anywhere. I called to him, but there was no reply.
• 7. The watchmen found me as they were making their rounds; they struck and wounded me. The watchman on the wall tore off my veil.
• 8. "Make this promise to me, O women of Jerusalem! If you find my beloved one, tell him that I am sick with love."
• 9. O woman of rare beauty, what is it about your loved one that brings you to tell us this?
• 10. My lover is dark and dazzling, better than ten thousand others!
• 11. His head is the finest gold, and his hair is wavy and black.
• 12. His eyes are like doves beside brooks of water; they are set like jewels.
• 13. His cheeks are like sweetly scented beds of spices. His lips are like perfumed lilies. His breath is like myrrh.
• 14. His arms are like round bars of gold, set with chrysolite. His body is like bright ivory, aglow with sapphires.
• 15. His legs are like pillars of marble set in sockets of the finest gold, strong as the cedars of Lebanon. None can rival him.
• 16. His mouth is altogether sweet; he is lovely in every way. Such, O women of Jerusalem, is my lover, my friend.

Song of Songs 6

• 1. O rarest of beautiful women, where has your lover gone? We will help you find him.
• 2. He has gone down to his garden, to his spice beds, to graze and to gather the lilies.
• 3. I am my lovers, and my lover is mine. He grazes among the lilies!
• 4. O my beloved, you are as beautiful as the lovely town of Tirzah. Yes, as beautiful as Jerusalem! You are as majestic as an army with banners!
• 5. Look away, for your eyes overcome me! Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats frisking down the slopes of Gilead.
• 6. Your teeth are as white as newly washed sheep. They are perfectly matched; not one is missing.
• 7. Your cheeks behind your veil are like pomegranate halves--lovely and delicious.
• 8. There may be sixty wives, all queens, and eighty concubines and unnumbered virgins available to me.
• 9. But I would still choose my dove, my perfect one, the only beloved daughter of her mother! The young women are delighted when they see her; even queens and concubines sing her praises!
• 10. `Who is this, they ask, `arising like the dawn, as fair as the moon, as bright as the sun, as majestic as an army with banners?
• 11. "I went down into the grove of nut trees and out to the valley to see the new growth brought on by spring. I wanted to see whether the grapevines were budding yet, or whether the pomegranates were blossoming.
• 12. Before I realized it, I found myself in my princely bed with my beloved one. "
• 13. Return, return to us, O maid of Shulam. Come back, come back, that we may see you once again. Why do you gaze so intently at this young woman of Shulam, as she moves so gracefully between two lines of dancers?

New Living Translation: 235 of 324 days.