8  The voice of my beloved!

Behold, he comes,

leaping over the mountains,

bounding over the hills.

9  My beloved is ^blike a gazelle

or a young stag.

Behold, there he stands

behind our wall,

gazing through the windows,

looking through the lattice.

10  My beloved speaks and says to me:

“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

and come away,

11  for behold, the winter is past;

the rain is over and gone.

12  The flowers appear on the earth,

the time of singing¹ has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

is heard in our land.

13  The fig tree ripens its figs,

and the vines are in ^cblossom;

they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

and come away.

14  O ^dmy dove, in the clefts of the rock,

in the crannies of the cliff,

let me see your face,

^elet me hear your voice,

for your voice is sweet,

and your face is lovely.

15  Catch the foxes² for us,

the little foxes

that spoil the vineyards,

for our vineyards are in blossom.”

16  ^fMy beloved is mine, and I am his;

he ^ggrazes³ among the lilies.

17  ^hUntil the day breathes

and the shadows flee,

turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle

or a young stag on cleft mountains.⁴

1  On my bed by night

I sought him ⁱwhom my soul loves;

I ^jsought him, but found him not.

2  I will rise now and go about the city,

in the streets and in the squares;

I will seek him whom my soul loves.

I sought him, but found him not.

3  ^kThe watchmen found me

as they went about in the city.

“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

4  Scarcely had I passed them

when I found him whom my soul loves.

I held him, and would not let him go

until I had ^lbrought him into my mother’s house,

and into the chamber of her who conceived me.

5  ^mI adjure you, O ⁿdaughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or the does of the field,

that you not stir up or awaken love

until it pleases.

6  ^oWhat is that coming up from the wilderness

like columns of smoke,

perfumed with ^pmyrrh and frankincense,

with all the fragrant powders of a merchant?

7  Behold, it is the litter⁵ of ^qSolomon!

Around it are sixty mighty men,

some of the mighty men of Israel,

8  all of them wearing swords

and expert in war,

each with his sword at his thigh,

against terror by night.

9  King Solomon made himself a carriage⁶

from the wood of Lebanon.

10  He made its posts of silver,

its back of gold, its seat of purple;

its interior was inlaid with love

by the daughters of Jerusalem.

11  Go out, O daughters of Zion,

and look upon King Solomon,

with the crown with which his mother crowned him

on the day of his wedding,

on the day of the gladness of his heart.