Song of Songs 3

¹ On my bed, at night, I sought him whom my heart loves. I sought but did not find him.

² So I will rise and go through the City; in the streets and the squares I will seek him whom my heart loves. … I sought but did not find him.

³ The watchmen came upon me on their rounds in the City: ‘Have you seen him whom my heart loves?’

⁴ Scarcely had I passed them than I found him whom my heart loves. I held him fast, nor would I let him go till I had brought him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me.

⁵ I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, by the hinds of the field, not to stir my love, nor rouse it, until it please to awake.

⁶ What is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, breathing of myrrh and frankincense and every perfume the merchant knows?

⁷ See, it is the litter of Solomon. Around it are sixty champions, the flower of the warriors of Israel;

⁸ all of them skilled swordsmen, veterans of battle. Each man has his sword at his side, against alarms by night.

⁹ King Solomon has made himself a throne of wood from Lebanon.

¹⁰ The posts he has made of silver, the canopy of gold, the seat of purple; the back is inlaid with ebony.

¹¹ Daughters of Zion, come and see King Solomon, wearing the diadem with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day, on the day of his heart’s joy.