Old/New Testament
The Young Women
6 Where did your beloved go,
most beautiful of women?
Where did your beloved turn,
so we may look for him with you?
The Loved One
2 My beloved has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to graze his flock[a] in the gardens
and gather lilies.
3 I belong to my beloved, and my beloved belongs to me.
He is the one who grazes his flock[b] among the lilies.
The Lover
4 You are beautiful, my darling, like Tirzah,[c]
lovely like Jerusalem,
as awesome as an army with banners.
5 Turn your eyes from me,
for they excite me.[d]
Your hair is like a flock of goats
coming down from Mt. Gilead.
6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
coming up from being washed.[e]
All of them are twins,
not one has lost[f] her young.
7 Your temple[g] behind your veil
is like a slice of pomegranate.
8 There are sixty queens and eighty mistresses,[h]
and too many young women to count,
9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique.
She’s unique to her mother,
she’s pure to the one who gave birth to her.
Young women see her and call her blessed,
queens and mistresses praise her.
The Young Women
10 Who is this who appears like the dawn,
beautiful as the moon,
bright as the sun,
awesome as an army with banners?
The Loved One
11 I went down to the walnut orchard,
to look at the green sprouts in the valley,
to see whether the vine had budded,
whether the pomegranates had blossomed.
12 Before I knew it,[i] I imagined myself
among the chariots of my noble people.[j]
The Young Women
13 [k]Return, return, Shulammite,
return, return, so we may look at you!
The Lover
7 [o]How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
noble lady.[p]
The curves of your thighs are like ornaments,
the work of a skilled artist’s hands.
2 Your navel is a rounded goblet
that never lacks mixed wine.
Your abdomen is a bundle of wheat,
enclosed by lilies.
3 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle.
4 Your neck is like a tower of ivory.
Your eyes are like the[q] pools in Heshbon,
beside the gate of Beth-rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon,
which faces Damascus.
5 Your head crowns you[r] like Mount Carmel.
Your flowing locks[s] are like purple,
and a king could be captured in the dangling tresses.
6 How beautiful and lovely you are,
you are love with its exquisite delights.[t]
7 Your stature[u] is like a palm tree,
and your breasts are like clusters of fruit.[v]
8 I told myself, “I’ll go up the palm tree,
and take hold of its fruit.
May your breasts be like clusters of the vine,[w]
and the smell of your breath like apples.[x]
9 May your mouth[y] be like good wine.
The Loved One
May it go down smoothly to my beloved,
gliding gently over the lips of the sleeping ones.
10 I belong to my beloved,
and his desire is for me.
11 Come, my beloved.
Let us go out to the country,
let us spend the night in the villages.[z]
12 Let us go early to the vineyards,
let us see whether the vine has budded,
whether the blossom has opened,
whether the pomegranates have bloomed.
There I’ll give you my love.
13 The mandrakes give off their[aa] fragrance,
and over our doors are all the choice fruits,
both old and new,
that I’ve stored up for you, my beloved.
8 If only you were like a brother to me,
like[ab] one who nursed at my mother’s breasts.
If I found you outside I would kiss you,
and no one would view me with contempt.[ac]
2 I would lead you,
I would bring you
to the house of my mother
who used to teach me.
I would give you some spiced wine to drink,
from the juice of my pomegranates.[ad]
3 Let his left hand be under my head,
and let his right hand embrace me.
4 Swear to me, young women of Jerusalem,
that you won’t awaken or arouse love
before its proper time![ae]
The Young Women
5 Who is this coming up from the desert,
leaning on her beloved?
The Loved One
Under the apple tree[af] I awakened you.
There your mother had gone into labor with you;
there she went into labor and gave birth to you.
6 Set me like a seal[ag] over your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
passion[ah] as intense as Sheol.[ai]
The flames of love[aj] are flames of fire,
a blaze that comes from the Lord.[ak]
7 Mighty bodies of water cannot extinguish love,
rivers cannot put it out.
If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love,
he would surely be viewed with contempt.
The Loved One’s Brothers
8 We[al] have a little sister,
and she has not yet reached maturity.[am]
What will we do for our sister
to prepare her for[an] her engagement?[ao]
9 If she’s a wall,
on her we will build a battlement of silver.
If she’s a door,
we will enclose her with planks of cedar.
The Loved One
10 I was a wall and my breasts were like towers.
Then I became like one who finds peace[ap] in his eyes.
11 Solomon has a vineyard in Baal-hamon.
He entrusted the vineyard to caretakers—
each one is to bring 1,000 pieces of silver
in exchange for its fruit.
12 My vineyard belongs to me and is at my disposal.[aq]
The 1,000 are for you, Solomon,
and 200 are for those who take care of its fruit.
The Lover
13 You who sit in the gardens,
companions are listening for your voice,
but let me hear it.
The Loved One
14 Come quickly, my beloved, and be like a gazelle
or a young stag on the mountains of spices.
4 Now what I am saying is this: As long as an heir is a child, he is no better off than a slave, even though he owns everything. 2 Instead, he is placed under the care of[a] guardians and servant managers until the time set by the father. 3 It was the same way with us. While we were children, we were slaves to the basic principles of the world.[b] 4 But when the appropriate time had come, God sent his Son, born by a woman, born under the Law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the Law, and thus to adopt them as his children. 6 Now because you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our[c] hearts to cry out, “Abba![d] Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if you are a child, then you are also an heir because of what God did.
8 However, in the past, when you did not know God, you were slaves to things that are not really gods at all.[e] 9 But now that you know God, or rather have been known by God, how can you turn back again to those powerless and bankrupt basic principles?[f] Why do you want to become their slaves all over again? 10 You are observing days, months, seasons, and years. 11 I am afraid for you! I don’t want my work for you to have[g] been wasted!
Paul’s Concern for the Galatians
12 I beg you, brothers, to become like me, since I became like you. You did not do anything wrong to me. 13 You know that it was because I was ill[h] that I brought you the gospel the first time. 14 Even though my condition put you to the test, you did not despise or reject me. On the contrary, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, or as if I were the Messiah[i] Jesus. 15 What, then, happened to your positive attitude?[j] For I testify that if it had been possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16 So have I now become your enemy for telling you the truth?
17 These people who have been instructing you[k] are devoted to you, but not in a good way. They want you to avoid me so that you will be devoted to them. 18 (Now it is always good to be devoted to a good cause, even when I am not with you.) 19 My children, I am suffering birth pains for you again until the Messiah[l] is formed in you. 20 Indeed, I wish I were with you right now so that I could change the tone of my voice, because I am completely baffled by you!
You are Children of a Free Woman
21 Tell me, those of you who want to live under the Law: Are you really listening to what the Law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. 23 Now the slave woman’s son was conceived through human means, while the free woman’s son was conceived through divine[m] promise. 24 This is being said as an allegory, for these women represent two covenants. The one woman, Hagar, is from Mount Sinai, and her children are born into slavery. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery along with her children. 26 But the heavenly Jerusalem is the free woman, and she is our spiritual mother.[n] 27 For it is written,
“Rejoice, you childless woman,
who cannot give birth to any children!
Break into song and shout,
you who feel no pains of childbirth!
For the children of the deserted woman
are more numerous than the children
of the woman who has a husband.”[o]
28 So you,[p] brothers, are children of the promise, like Isaac. 29 But just as then the son who was conceived according to the flesh persecuted the son who was conceived according to the Spirit, so it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Drive out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman must never share the inheritance with the son of the free woman.”[q] 31 So then, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.
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