¹The Song of Songs, which is for Solomon. ²⌞May you kiss me⌟ ⌞passionately with your lips⌟, for your love is better than wine. ³As fragrance, ⌞your perfumes⌟ are ⌞delightful⌟; your name is poured out ⌞perfume⌟; therefore young women love you. ⁴Draw me after you, let us run! May the king bring me into his chambers! Let us be joyful and let us rejoice in you; let us extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you! ⁵I am black but beautiful, ⌞O maidens of Jerusalem⌟, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. ⁶Do not gaze at me because I am black, because the sun has stared at me. The sons of my mother were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own “vineyard” I did not keep. ⁷Tell me, you whom my ⌞heart⌟ loves, where do you pasture your flock, where do your sheep lie down at the noon? ⌞For why should I be like⌟ one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions? ⁸If you do not know, O fairest among women, follow ⌞the tracks⌟ of the flock, and pasture your little lambs beside the tents of the shepherds. ⁹To a mare among the chariots of Pharaoh, I compare you, my beloved. ¹⁰Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels. ¹¹We will make ornaments of gold for you with studs of silver. ¹²While the king was on his couch, my nard gave its fragrance. ¹³My beloved is to me ⌞a pouch⌟ of myrrh, he spends the night between my breasts. ¹⁴My beloved is to me a cluster of blossoms of henna in the vineyards of En Gedi. ¹⁵Look! You are beautiful, my beloved. Look! You are beautiful; your eyes are doves. ¹⁶Look! You are beautiful, my beloved, truly pleasant. Truly our couch is ⌞verdant⌟; ¹⁷the beams of our house are cedar; our rafter is cypress.