Old/New Testament
6 “My well-beloved has gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and gather lilies.
2 “I am my well-beloved’s. And my well-beloved is mine, who feeds among the lilies.”
3 “You, my love, are beautiful as Tirzah, as comely as Jerusalem, as terrible as an army with banners.
4 “Turn away your eyes from me, for they overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, which look down from Gilead.
5 “Your teeth are like a flock of sheep, which go up from the washing, from which each one brings out twins. And none is barren among them.
6 “Your temples are as a piece of a pomegranate within your locks.
7 “There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and virgins without number.
8 “But my dove is alone. My undefiled, she is the only daughter of her mother, and she is dear to her who bore her. The daughters have seen her and counted her blessed, as have the queens and the concubines, and they have praised her.
9 “Who is she who looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, pure as the Sun, awesome as an army with banners!
10 “I went down to the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valley, to see if the vine budded, and if the pomegranates flourished.
11 “I knew nothing. My soul set me as the chariots of my noble people.
12 “Return! Return, O Shulamite, return! Return so that we may behold you!” “What shall you see in the Shulamite—the dance of two armies, as it were?”
7 “How beautiful are your feet with sandals, O prince’s daughter! The joints of your thighs are like jewels, the work of a cunning workman’s hand.
2 “Your navel is as a round cup that does not lack liquor. Your belly is as a heap of wheat surrounded with lilies.
3 “Your two breasts are as two twin fawns of a gazelle.
4 “Your neck is like a tower of ivory. Your eyes are like the fish pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is as the tower of Lebanon that looks toward Damascus.
5 “Your head upon you is like Carmel, and the hair of your head like purple. The king is tied in the rafters.
6 “How fair you are, and how pleasant you are, O my love, in pleasures!
7 “This, your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts like clusters.
8 “I said, ‘I will go up into the palm tree. I will take hold of her branches.’ Your breasts shall now be like the clusters of the vine, and the savor of your nose like apples,
9 “and the roof of your mouth like good wine, “which goes straight to my well-beloved and causes the lips of the ancient to speak.
10 “I am my well-beloved’s. And his desire is toward me.
11 “Come, my well-beloved, let us go forth into the field. Let us remain in the villages.
12 “Let us get up early to the vines. Let us see if the vine flourishes, whether it has budded the small grapes, or where the pomegranates flourish. There I will give you my love.
13 “The mandrakes have given a smell. And in our gates are all sweet things, new and old. My well-beloved, I have kept them for you.”
8 “Oh that you were as my brother who sucked the breasts of my mother. I would find you outside. I would kiss you. Then they would not despise you.
2 “I will lead you and bring you into my mother’s house. There you shall teach me. I will make you drink spiced wine, new wine of the pomegranate.
3 “His left hand shall be under my head. And his right hand shall embrace me.
4 “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you neither stir up nor awaken my love until she pleases.”
5 “Who is this who comes up out of the wilderness, leaning upon her well-beloved? I raised you up under an apple tree. There your mother conceived you. There she conceived who bore you.”
6 “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a signet upon your arm. For love is strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave. Its coals are fiery coals, a vehement flame.
7 “Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the rivers drown it. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, they would greatly despise it.”
8 “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister when she shall be spoken for?
9 “If she is a wall, we will build a silver palace upon her. And if she is a door, we will keep her in with boards of cedar.”
10 “I am a wall. And my breasts are as towers. Then I was, in his eyes, as one who finds peace.
11 “Solomon had a vine in Baal Hamon. He gave the vineyard to keepers. Everyone brought forth a thousand pieces of silver for its fruit.
12 “My vineyard, which is mine, is before me. To you, O Solomon, belongs a thousand, and two hundred to those who keep its fruit.”
13 “O you who dwells in the gardens, the companions listen to your voice! Let me hear it!”
14 “O my well-beloved, flee away and be like the gazelle, or the young stag upon the mountains of spices.”
4 Then I say that the heir (as long as he is a child) differs nothing from a servant - though he be Lord of all -
2 but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the Father.
3 Even so, we (when we were children) were in bondage under the basic principles of the world.
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman and made under the Law;
5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law (that we might receive adoption as sons).
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, who cries, “Abba, Father!”
7 Therefore, you are a servant no more, but a son. Now, if you are a son, you are also the heir of God, through Christ.
8 But even then, when you did not know God, you were enslaved by those who, by nature, are not gods.
9 But now, seeing you know God - indeed, rather, are known by God - how can you turn again to weak and poor principals; so that, as before, you will be in bondage again?
10 You observe days and months and times and years.
11 I am in fear for you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.
12 Be as me, brothers, I beg you (for I am also like you). You have not hurt me at all.
13 And you know how through weakness of the flesh I preached the Gospel to you at first.
14 And your trial from me (which was in my flesh) you neither despised nor abhorred. But you received me as an angel of God; indeed, as Christ Jesus.
15 Where then is your felicity? For I bear witness that if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me.
16 Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
17 They are wrongly jealous for you. Yea, they would separate you from us, so that you would be jealous for them.
18 But it is a good thing to always love earnestly in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you,
19 my little children with whom I travail in birth again, until Christ is formed in you.
20 And I would that I were with you now, so I might change my voice. For I am in doubt of you.
21 Tell me, you who would be under the Law, do you not hear the Law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: one by a servant and one by a free woman.
23 But he who was by the servant was born after the flesh. And he who was by the free woman was born by promise.
24 These things are allegorical. For these mothers are the two Testaments. The one called Hagar begat those of mount Sinai, who are enslaved.
25 For Hagar (or Sinai) is a mountain in Arabia, and it is now presently Jerusalem. And she is enslaved with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem above is free and is the mother of us all.
27 For it is written, “Rejoice, you barren who bear no children! Break forth, and cry, you who do not travail! For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.”
28 Therefore, brothers, we are like Isaac: children of the promise.
29 But just as at that time the one who was born after the flesh persecuted the one who was born after the Spirit, so also it is now.
30 But what says the Scripture? ‘Put out the servant and her son. For the son of the servant shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.’
31 Then, brothers, we are not children of the servant, but of the free woman.
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