Old/New Testament
6 ¶ Where has thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? where didst thy beloved separate himself? that we may seek him with thee.
2 My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather the lilies.
3 I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine; he feeds among the lilies.
4 ¶ Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, as desirable as Jerusalem, imposing as the standard-bearer of the army.
5 Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me; thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead.
6 Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, of which every one bears twins, and there is not one barren among them.
7 As slices of pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks.
8 There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and virgins without number.
9 My dove is but one, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that brought her into the light. The virgins saw her and called her blessed; yea, the queens and the concubines and they praised her.
10 Who is she that shows herself forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and imposing as the standard-bearer of the army?
11 ¶ I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vines flourished, and the pomegranates budded.
12 Or ever I was aware, my soul made me return like the chariots of Amminadib.
13 Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? She shall be as a multitude of tabernacles.
7 ¶ How beautiful are thy feet in thy shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of an excellent workman.
2 Thy navel is like a round goblet, which does not lack liquor; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.
3 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.
4 Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon by the gate of Bathrabbim; thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus.
5 Thine head upon thee is like scarlet, and the hair of thine head like the purple of the king hung in the galleries.
6 How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!
7 This, thy stature is like unto the palm tree, and thy breasts to the clusters.
8 I said, I will climb up the palm tree, I will take hold of the clusters thereof; now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine and the smell of thy nose like apples;
9 and thy palate like the best wine that goes into my beloved sweetly and causes the lips of those that are asleep to speak.
10 ¶ I am my beloved’s, and with me he has his contentment.
11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vines flourish, whether the tender flowers appear, if the pomegranates bud forth; there I will give thee my loves.
13 The mandrakes have given their fragrance, and at our gates are all manner of sweet fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
8 ¶ O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; and I should not be despised.
2 I would lead thee and bring thee into my mother’s house, that thou would instruct me; I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.
3 His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.
4 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye not awake nor stir up love until he pleases.
5 ¶ Who is she that comes up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I woke thee up under the apple tree; there thy mother had birth pains; there she had pains that brought thee into the light.
6 Set me as a seal upon thine heart as a sign upon thine arm; for love is strong as death; jealousy is hard as Sheol; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which have a most vehement flame.
7 The many waters cannot quench love, neither can the rivers drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for this love, it would certainly be despised.
8 ¶ We have a little sister, and she still has no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?
9 If she is a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver; and if she is a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.
10 I am a wall, and my breasts like towers since I was in his eyes as the one that found peace.
11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baalhamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; for its fruit each one was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.
12 My vineyard, which is mine, is before me; the thousand pieces shall be thine, O Solomon, and two hundred for those that keep the fruit.
13 ¶ Thou, she that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice; cause me to hear it.
14 Run, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.
4 ¶ Now I say That the heir, as long as he is a child differs in nothing from a slave, though he be lord of all,
2 but is under the hand of tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
3 Even so we, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world,
4 but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father;
7 therefore, thou art no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
8 ¶ However then, when ye did not know God, ye did service unto those who by nature are not gods.
9 But now, having known God, or rather being known of God, how do ye turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, in which ye desire again to be in slavery?
10 Ye observe days and months and times and years.
11 I am afraid for you, lest I have bestowed labour upon you in vain.
12 ¶ Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are; ye have not injured me at all.
13 Ye know how through weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.
14 And my affliction which was in my flesh ye did not despise, nor reject but ye received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
15 Where is then the blessedness ye spoke of? for I bear you record that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me.
16 Am I, therefore, become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
17 ¶ They are zealous after you, but not for good; they would exclude you from us, that ye might be zealous after them.
18 It is good to be always zealous to do good, and not only when I am present with you.
19 ¶ My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ is formed in you,
20 I desire to be present with you now and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you.
21 ¶ Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, have ye not heard the law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, but he of the freewoman was born through the promise.
24 Which things are an allegory; for these women are the two covenants: the one from the Mount Sinai, which begat unto slavery, which is Hagar.
25 For this Hagar or Sinai is a mount in Arabia, which corresponds to the one that is now Jerusalem, which together with her children is in slavery.
26 But the Jerusalem of above is free, which is the mother of us all.
27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth into praise and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.
28 So that we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
29 But as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.
30 Nevertheless what does the scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
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