Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁹ O God, I will sing a new song unto thee; with the ten-stringed lute will I sing psalms unto thee:

¹⁰ Who givest salvation unto kings; who rescuest David thy servant from the hurtful sword.

¹¹ Rescue me, and deliver me from the hand of aliens, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

¹² That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; our daughters as corner-columns, sculptured after the fashion of a palace:

¹³ Our granaries full, affording all manner of store; our sheep bringing forth thousands, ten thousands in our pastures;

¹⁴ Our kine laden [with young]; no breaking in and no going forth, and no outcry in our streets.

¹⁵ Blessed the people that is in such a case! Blessed the people whose God is Jehovah!

² I slept, but my heart was awake. The voice of my beloved! he knocketh: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, mine undefiled; For my head is filled with dew, My locks with the drops of the night.

³ —I have put off my tunic, how should I put it on? I have washed my feet, how should I pollute them?—

⁴ My beloved put in his hand by the hole [of the door]; And my bowels yearned for him.

⁵ I rose up to open to my beloved; And my hands dropped with myrrh, And my fingers with liquid myrrh, Upon the handles of the lock.

⁶ I opened to my beloved; But my beloved had withdrawn himself; he was gone: My soul went forth when he spoke. I sought him, but I found him not; I called him, but he gave me no answer.

⁷ The watchmen that went about the city found me; They smote me, they wounded me; The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

⁸ I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, If ye find my beloved, … What will ye tell him?—That I am sick of love.

⁹ What is thy beloved more than [another] beloved, Thou fairest among women? What is thy beloved more than [another] beloved, That thou dost so charge us?

¹⁰ My beloved is white and ruddy, The chiefest among ten thousand.

¹¹ His head is [as] the finest gold; His locks are flowing, black as the raven;

¹² His eyes are like doves by the water-brooks, Washed with milk, fitly set;

¹³ His cheeks are as a bed of spices, raised beds of sweet plants; His lips lilies, dropping liquid myrrh.

¹⁴ His hands gold rings, set with the chrysolite; His belly is bright ivory, overlaid [with] sapphires;

¹⁵ His legs, pillars of marble, set upon bases of fine gold: His bearing as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars;

¹⁶ His mouth is most sweet: Yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, yea, this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

6 Whither is thy beloved gone, Thou fairest among women? Whither is thy beloved turned aside? And we will 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 lilies.

³ I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: He feedeth [his flock] among the lilies.

¹⁹ For this [is] acceptable, if one, for conscience sake towards God, endure griefs, suffering unjustly.

²⁰ For what glory [is it], if sinning and being buffeted ye shall bear [it]? but if, doing good and suffering, ye shall bear [it], this is acceptable with God.

²¹ For to this have ye been called; for Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you a model that ye should follow in his steps:

²² who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth;

²³ who, [when] reviled, reviled not again; [when] suffering, threatened not; but gave [himself] over into the hands of him who judges righteously;

²⁴ who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, in order that, being dead to sins, we may live to righteousness: by whose stripes ye have been healed.

²⁵ For ye were going astray as sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.