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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!
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]

The Man Speaks to the Woman

You are the most beautiful of women.
    Surely you know to follow the sheep.
Feed your young goats
    near the shepherds’ tents.

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Footnotes

  1. 1:7 veil This was the way a prostitute usually dressed.

Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

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