² Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!
    Your love is better than wine.
³ The smell of your perfume is pleasant.
    Your name is pleasant like expensive perfume!
    That’s why the young women love you.
⁴ Take me with you; let’s run.
    The king takes me into his rooms.

We will rejoice and be happy with you.
    We praise your love more than wine.

With good reason, the young women love you, my lover.
⁵ I’m dark but lovely,
    women of Jerusalem.
    I’m dark like the tents of Kedar,
    like the curtains of Solomon.
⁶ Don’t look at how dark I am,
    at how dark the sun has made me.
My brothers were angry with me.
    They made me tend the vineyards.
    So I haven’t tended my own vineyard!
⁷ Tell me, you whom I love,
    where do you feed your sheep?
    Where do you make them rest at noon?
Why should I look for you near your friend’s sheep?
    Am I like a woman who wears a veil?^[a]

⁸ You are the most beautiful of women.
    Surely you know to follow the sheep.
Feed your young goats
    near the shepherds’ tents.
⁹ My darling, you are like a mare
    that pulls the king’s chariots.
¹⁰ Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments.
    Your neck is beautiful with jewels.
¹¹ We will make for you gold earrings
    with silver hooks.

¹² The smell of my perfume spreads out
    to the king on his couch.
¹³ My lover is like a bag of myrrh
    that lies all night between my breasts.
¹⁴ My lover is like a bunch of flowers
    from the vineyards at En Gedi.

¹⁵ My darling, you are beautiful!
    Oh, you are beautiful!
    Your eyes are like doves!

¹⁶ You are so handsome, my lover.
    You are so pleasant!
    Our bed is the grass.
¹⁷ The boards of our house are cedar trees.
    And the wood of our ceiling is juniper trees.