Song of Solomon 8

¹Oh that thou wert as my brother,

That sucked the breasts of my mother!

When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee;

Yea, and none would despise me.

²I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house,

Who would instruct me;

I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine,

Of the juice of my pomegranate.

³His left hand should be under my head,

And his right hand should embrace me.

⁴I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

That ye stir not up, nor awake my love,

Until he please.

⁵Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness,

Leaning upon her beloved?

Under the apple-tree I awakened thee:

There thy mother was in travail with thee,

There was she in travail that brought thee forth.

⁶Set me as a seal upon thy heart,

As a seal upon thine arm:

For love is strong as death;

Jealousy is cruel as Sheol;

The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,

A very flame of Jehovah.

⁷Many waters cannot quench love,

Neither can floods drown it:

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,

He would utterly be contemned.

⁸We have a little sister,

And she hath no breasts:

What shall we do for our sister

In the day when she shall be spoken for?

⁹If she be a wall,

We will build upon her a turret of silver:

And if she be a door,

We will inclose her with boards of cedar.

¹⁰I am a wall, and my breasts like the towers thereof

Then was I in his eyes as one that found peace.

¹¹Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;

He let out the vineyard unto keepers;

Every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.

¹²My vineyard, which is mine, is before me:

Thou, O Solomon, shalt have the thousand,

And those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.

¹³Thou that dwellest in the gardens,

The companions hearken for thy voice:

Cause me to hear it.

¹⁴Make haste, my beloved,

And be thou like to a roe or to a young hart

Upon the mountains of spices.