Song of Songs 6

¹ Where did your Beloved go, O loveliest of women? Which way did your Beloved turn so that we can help you to look for him?

² My Beloved went down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens and gather lilies.

³ I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine. He pastures his flock among the lilies.

⁴ You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, fair as Jerusalem.

⁵ Turn your eyes away, for they hold me captive. Your hair is like a flock of goats frisking down the slopes of Gilead.

⁶ Your teeth are like a flock of sheep as they come up from the washing. Each one has its twin, not one unpaired with another.

⁷ Your cheeks, behind your veil, are halves of pomegranate.

⁸ There are sixty queens and eighty concubines (and countless maidens).

⁹ But my dove is unique, mine, unique and perfect. She is the darling of her mother, the favourite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her, and proclaimed her blessed, queens and concubines sang her praises:

¹⁰ ‘Who is this arising like the dawn, fair as the moon, resplendent as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?’

¹¹ I went down to the nut orchard to see what was sprouting in the valley, to see if the vines were budding and the pomegranate trees in flower.

¹² Before I knew … my desire had hurled me on the chariots of my people, as their prince.