6 “Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? Whither is thy beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee?”

² “My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies.

³ I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine; he feedeth among the lilies.”

⁴ “Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, fearsome as an army with banners.

⁵ Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead.

⁶ Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them.

⁷ As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks.

⁸ There are threescore queens and fourscore concubines and virgins without number.

⁹ My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother; she is the choice one of her that bore her.” “The daughters saw her and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her:

¹⁰ ‘Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and fearsome as an army with banners?’”

¹¹ “I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded.

¹² Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.”

¹³ “Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee.” “What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.”

7 “How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman.

² Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.

³ Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins;

⁴ thy neck is as a tower of ivory. Thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon by the gate of Bathrabbim; thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus.

⁵ Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in its galleries.

⁶ How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!

⁷ This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.

⁸ I said, ‘I will go up to the palm tree; I will take hold of the boughs thereof.’ Now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples.

⁹ And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.”

¹⁰ “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.

¹¹ Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.

¹² Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth; there will I give thee my loves.

¹³ The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.”

8 “O, that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! When I should find thee outside, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised.

² I 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.

³ His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.

⁴ I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up nor awake my love, until he please.”

⁵ “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree; there thy mother brought thee forth; there she brought thee forth that bore thee.”

⁶ “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”

⁷ “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.”

⁸ “We 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?

⁹ If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver; and if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.”

¹⁰ “I am a wall, and my breasts like towers; then was I in his eyes as one that found favor.

¹¹ Solomon had a vineyard at Baalhamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.

¹² My vineyard, which is mine, is before me; thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.”

¹³ “Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice; cause me to hear it.”

¹⁴ “Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.”

4 Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth in nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all.

² But he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father.

³ Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.

⁴ But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

⁶ And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.”

⁷ Therefore thou art no more a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

⁸ However that be, then when ye knew not God, ye did service unto those which by nature are not gods.

⁹ But now after ye have known God, or rather are known by God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements unto which ye desire again to be in bondage?

¹⁰ Ye observe days and months and times and years.

¹¹ I am afraid for you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.

¹² Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me at all.

¹³ Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you at the first.

¹⁴ And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected, but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ Where is then the blessedness ye spoke of? For I bear you record that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me.

¹⁶ Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?

¹⁷ They zealously seek after you, but for no good; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might seek after them.

¹⁸ But it is good to be zealously sought after, always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.

¹⁹ My little children, over whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

²⁰ I desire to be present with you now and to change my tone; for I stand in doubt of you.

²¹ Tell me, ye who desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

²³ But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, but he of the freewoman was by promise.

²⁴ These things are an allegory, for these are the two covenants: The one is from Mount Sinai, which engendereth bondage; this is Hagar.

²⁵ For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to Jerusalem as it is now, and is in bondage with her children.

²⁶ But the Jerusalem which is above is free, and is the mother of us all.

²⁷ For it is written: “Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she who hath a husband.”

²⁸ Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

²⁹ But as then, he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.

³⁰ Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.”

³¹ So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.