Read the Bible

¹ Oh that thou wert as my brother,
That sucked the breasts of my mother!
When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee;
Yea, and none would despise me.
² I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house,
^[a]Who would instruct me;
I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine,
Of the ^[b]juice of my pomegranate.
³ His left hand should be under my head,
And his right hand should embrace me.

⁴ I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
^[c]That ye stir not up, nor awake my love,
Until ^[d]he please.

⁵ Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness,
Leaning upon her beloved?

Under the apple-tree I awakened thee:
There thy mother was in travail with thee,
There was she in travail ^[e]that brought thee forth.

⁶ Set me as a seal upon thy heart,
As a seal upon thine arm:
For love is strong as death;
Jealousy is ^[f]cruel as Sheol;
The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
^[g]A very flame of ^[h]Jehovah.
⁷ Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can floods drown it:
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
^[i]He would utterly be contemned.

⁸ We have a little sister,
And she hath no breasts:
What shall we do for our sister
In the day when she shall be spoken for?

⁹ If she be a wall,
We will build upon her ^[j]a turret of silver:
And if she be a door,
We will inclose her with boards of cedar.

¹⁰ I ^[k]am a wall, and my breasts like the towers thereof
Then was I in his eyes as one that found peace.
¹¹ Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
He let out the vineyard unto keepers;
Every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.
¹² My vineyard, which is mine, is before me:
Thou, O Solomon, shalt have the thousand,
And those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.

¹³ Thou that dwellest in the gardens,
The companions hearken ^[l]for thy voice:
Cause me to hear it.

^14 [m]Make haste, my beloved,
And be thou like to a ^[n]roe or to a young hart
Upon the mountains of spices.