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¹ I am come into my garden, my sister, [my] spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, beloved ones!

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⁶ I opened to my beloved; But my beloved had withdrawn himself; he was gone: My soul went forth when he spoke.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.