Old/New Testament
1 ¶The song of songs, which is of Solomon.
2 ¶ Oh! if he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! for thy love is better than wine.
3 Because of the savour of thy good ointments (ointment poured forth is thy name), therefore have the virgins loved thee.
4 Draw me after thee, we will run. The king has brought me into his chambers; we will be glad and rejoice in thee; we will remember thy love more than the wine; the upright love thee.
5 I am dark, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, more desirable as the booths of Kedar, as the tents of Solomon.
6 Do not look upon me because I am dark because the sun has looked upon me; my mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but I have not kept my own vineyard.
7 ¶ Tell me, O thou whom my soul loves, where thou dost feed, where thou dost make thy flock to rest at noon; for why did I have to be as a wanderer after the flocks of thy companions?
8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go forth, following the footprints of the flock and feed thy little female goats beside the booths of the shepherds.
9 I have compared thee, O my love, to a mare of the chariots of Pharaoh.
10 Thy cheeks are beautiful between the earrings, thy neck between the necklaces.
11 We will make thee earrings of gold with studs of silver.
12 ¶ While the king was on his couch, my spikenard gave forth its fragrance.
13 A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me that rests between my breasts.
14 My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire {Heb. ransom} in the vineyards of Engedi.
15 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.
16 Behold, thou art fair, O my beloved, and pleasant; also our bed has flowers.
17 The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir.
2 ¶ I am the lily of the field {Heb. Sharon} and the rose of the valleys.
2 As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the virgins.
3 ¶ As the apple tree among the trees of the wild, so is my beloved among the sons. I desired to sit under his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
4 He brought me to the wine chamber and placed his banner of love over me.
5 Sustain me with flagons of wine, strengthen me with apples; for I am sick with love.
6 His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me.
7 I charge you, O ye virgins of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field that ye not awake nor stir up love, until he pleases.
8 ¶ The voice of my beloved! behold, he comes leaping over the mountains, skipping over the hills.
9 My beloved is like a roe or a young hart; behold, he stands behind our wall; he looks through the windows, blossoming through the lattice.
10 My beloved spoke and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
11 For, behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone;
12 the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the song is come, and the voice of the turtle dove has been heard in our land;
13 the fig tree has put forth her green figs, and the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
14 ¶ O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is beautiful.
15 Hunt the foxes for us, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines are in blossom.
16 My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feeds among the lilies.
17 Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, return, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.
3 ¶ By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him.
2 I will rise now and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him.
3 The watchmen that go about the city found me, to whom I said, Have ye seen him whom my soul loves?
4 It was but a little that I passed from them that I found him whom my soul loves: I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house and into the chamber of her that brought me into the light.
5 I charge you, O ye virgins of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye not awake nor stir up love, until he pleases.
6 ¶ Who is she that rises out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense and with all the aromatic powders?
7 ¶ Behold it is the bed of Solomon; sixty valiant men are about it of the valiant of Israel.
8 They all hold swords, being expert in war; each one has his sword upon his thigh because of the fears of the night.
9 King Solomon made himself a palanquin of the wood of Lebanon.
10 He made its pillars of silver, the bottom of it of gold, the covering of it of purple, its interior being paved with love, for the virgins of Jerusalem.
11 Go forth, O ye virgins of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown with which his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.
2 ¶ Then fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also.
2 But I went up by revelation and communicated unto them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who seemed to be of repute, to not run, or have run, in vain.
3 But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised,
4 And that in spite of the false brethren, who entered secretly to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage;
5 Unto whom we did not submit even for one hour that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.
6 But of these who seemed to be of repute, (whatever they were, it makes no matter to me: God does not accept the appearance of men), for those who seemed to be of repute in conference added nothing to me;
7 But to the contrary, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter
8 (for he that showed himself forth in Peter for apostleship of the circumcision, the same also showed himself forth in me toward the Gentiles);
9 and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision.
10 Only they asked that we should remember the poor; the same which I was also diligent to do.
11 ¶ But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed.
12 For before certain ones came from James, he ate with the Gentiles, but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.
13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their hypocrisy.
14 But when I saw that they did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, dost live after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why dost thou compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
15 We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
17 But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of our sin? No, in no wise.
18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a rebel.
19 For through the law I am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
20 I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I do not reject the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
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