Song of Songs 8:5-14

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Under the apple tree I awakened you.
There your mother was in labor with you;
    there she who bore you was in labor.^(A)

⁶ Set me as a seal upon your heart,
    as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
    passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
    a raging flame.^(B)
7 Many waters cannot quench love,
    neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
    all the wealth of one’s house,
    it^[a] would be utterly scorned.

⁸ We have a little sister,
    and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister,
    on the day when she is spoken for?^(C)
9 If she is a wall,
    we will build upon her a battlement of silver,
but if she is a door,
    we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
¹⁰ I was a wall,
    and my breasts were like towers;
then I was in his eyes
    as one who brings^[b] peace.
¹¹ Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
    he entrusted the vineyard to keepers;
    each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.^(D)
12 My vineyard, my very own, is for myself;
    you, O Solomon, may have the thousand
    and the keepers of the fruit two hundred!

¹³ O you who dwell in the gardens,
    my companions are listening for your voice;
    let me hear it.^(E)

¹⁴ Make haste, my beloved,
    and be like a gazelle
or a young stag
    upon the mountains of spices!^(F)