Old/New Testament
A Love Song
1 Solomon’s Song of Songs.
The Woman Speaks to the Man She Loves
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.
Friends Speak to the Man
We will rejoice and be happy with you.
We praise your love more than wine.
The Woman Speaks
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]
The Man Speaks to the Woman
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.
The Woman Speaks
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.
The Man Speaks
15 My darling, you are beautiful!
Oh, you are beautiful!
Your eyes are like doves!
The Woman Answers the Man
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.
The Woman Speaks Again
2 I am a rose in the Plain of Sharon.
I am a lily in the valleys.
The Man Speaks Again
2 Among the young women, my darling
is like a lily among thorns!
The Woman Answers
3 Among young men, my lover
is like an apple tree among the trees in the woods!
I enjoy sitting in his shadow.
His fruit is sweet to my taste.
4 He brought me to the banquet room.
His banner over me is love.
5 Strengthen me with raisins.
Refresh me with apples,
because I am weak with love.
6 My lover’s left hand is under my head.
And his right arm holds me tight!
The Woman Speaks to the Friends
7 Women of Jerusalem, promise me
by the gazelles and the deer.
Promise not to wake love.
Don’t excite my feelings of love
until I’m ready.
The Woman Speaks Again
8 I hear my lover’s voice.
He comes jumping across the mountains.
He comes skipping over the hills!
9 My lover is like a gazelle or a young deer.
Look, he stands behind our wall.
He stares in through the windows,
looking through the blinds.
10 My lover spoke. He said to me,
“Get up, my darling.
Let’s go away, my beautiful one.
11 Look, the winter is past.
The rains are over and gone.
12 Blossoms appear through all the land.
The time has come to sing.
The cooing of doves is heard in our land.
13 There are young figs on the fig trees.
The blossoms on the vines smell sweet.
Get up, my darling.
Let’s go away, my beautiful one.”
The Man Speaks
14 My beloved is like a dove that hides in the cracks of the rock.
She hides in the secret places of the cliff.
Show me your face.
Let me hear your voice.
Your voice is very sweet,
and your face is lovely.
15 Catch the foxes for us—
the little foxes that ruin the vineyards.
Our vineyards are in blossom.
The Woman Speaks
16 My lover is mine, and I am his.
He feeds among the lilies
17 until the day dawns
and the shadows disappear.
Turn, my lover.
Be like a gazelle or a young deer
on the rugged mountains.
The Woman Dreams
3 At night on my bed,
I looked for the one I love.
I looked for him, but I could not find him.
2 I will get up now. I will go around the city,
in the streets and squares.
I will look for the one I love.
I looked for him, but I could not find him.
3 The watchmen found me as they patrolled the city.
I asked, “Have you seen the one I love?”
4 As soon as I had left them
I found the one I love.
I held him. I would not let him go
until I had brought him to my mother’s house.
I brought him into the room where I was born.
The Woman Speaks to the Friends
5 Women of Jerusalem, promise me
by the gazelles and the deer.
Promise not to wake love.
Don’t excite my feelings of love
until I’m ready.
6 Who is this coming out of the desert
like a cloud of smoke?
Who is this that smells like myrrh, incense
and other spices?
7 Look, it’s Solomon’s couch[b]
with 60 soldiers around it.
They are the finest soldiers of Israel.
8 These soldiers all carry swords.
They have been trained in war.
Every man wears his sword at his side.
He is ready for the dangers of the night.
9 King Solomon had a couch made for himself.
It is made of wood from Lebanon.
10 He made its posts of silver
and its braces of gold.
The seat was covered with purple cloth.
The women of Jerusalem wove it with love.
11 Women of Jerusalem, go out and see King Solomon.
He is wearing the crown his mother put on his head.
It was his wedding day,
when his heart was happy!
Other Apostles Accepted Paul
2 After 14 years, I went to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas. I also took Titus with me. 2 I went because God showed me that I should go. I met with those men who were the leaders of the believers. When we were alone, I told them the Good News that I preach to the non-Jewish people. I did not want my past work and the work I am now doing to be wasted. 3 Titus was with me. But Titus was not forced to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4 We talked about this problem because some false brothers had come into our group secretly. They came in like spies to find out about the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to make us slaves. 5 But we did not agree with anything those false brothers wanted! We wanted the truth of the Good News to continue for you.
6 Those men who seemed to be important did not change the Good News that I preach. (It doesn’t matter to me if they were “important” or not. To God all men are the same.) 7 But these leaders saw that God had given me special work, just as he had to Peter. God gave Peter the work of telling the Good News to the Jews. But God gave me the work of telling the Good News to the non-Jewish people. 8 God gave Peter the power to work as an apostle for the Jewish people. But he also gave me the power to work as an apostle for those who are not Jews. 9 James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be the leaders, saw that God had given me this special grace. So they accepted Barnabas and me. They said, “Paul and Barnabas, we agree that you should go to the people who are not Jews. We will go to the Jews.” 10 They asked us to do only one thing—to remember to help the poor. And this was something that I really wanted to do.
Paul Shows That Peter Was Wrong
11 When Peter came to Antioch, I was against him because he was wrong. 12 This is what happened: When Peter first came to Antioch, he ate with the non-Jewish people. But then some Jewish men were sent from James. When they arrived, Peter stopped eating with the non-Jewish people and separated himself from them. He was afraid of the Jews who believe that all non-Jewish people must be circumcised. 13 So Peter was a hypocrite. The other Jewish believers joined with him and were hypocrites, too. Even Barnabas was influenced by what these Jewish believers did. 14 I saw what they did. They were not following the truth of the Good News. So I spoke to Peter in front of them all. I said: “Peter, you are a Jew, but you are not living like a Jew. You are living like the non-Jewish people. So why do you now try to force the non-Jewish people to live like Jews?”
15 We were not born as non-Jewish “sinners,” but we were born as Jews. 16 Yet we know that a person is not made right with God by following the law. No! It is trusting in Jesus Christ that makes a person right with God. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we might be made right with God. And we are right with God because we trusted in Christ—not because we followed the law. For no one can be made right with God by following the law.
17 We Jews came to Christ to be made right with God. So it is clear that we were sinners too. Does this mean that Christ makes us sinners? No! 18 But I would really be wrong to begin teaching again those things of the Law of Moses that I gave up. 19 I stopped living for the law. It was the law that put me to death. I died to the law so that I can now live for God. I was put to death on the cross with Christ. 20 I do not live anymore—it is Christ living in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God. He loved me and gave himself to save me. 21 This gift is from God, and it is very important to me. If the law could make us right with God, then Christ did not have to die.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.