1I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; 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, friends! Drink, and be drunk with love, lovers!
2I was asleep, but my heart was awake. Listen — my beloved is knocking: “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.”
3I have taken off my robe — how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet — how can I soil them?
4My beloved thrust his hand through the opening, and my insides stirred for him.
5I rose up to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt.
6I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away, gone. My soul went out when he spoke. I sought him but did not find him; I called him but he did not answer me.
7The watchmen who go about the city found me; they struck me, they wounded me; the guards of the walls took away my shawl from me.
8I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem: if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? — that I am sick with love.
9How is your beloved better than another beloved, most beautiful among women? How is your beloved better than another beloved, that you adjure us so?
10My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand.
11His head is finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven.
12His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, bathing in milk, sitting by a brimming pool.
13His cheeks are like a bed of spices, towers of fragrant herbs; his lips are lilies, dripping with flowing myrrh.
14His hands are rods of gold set with Tarshish-stone; his belly is a plate of ivory adorned with sapphires.
15His legs are pillars of alabaster set on bases of fine gold; his appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars.
16His mouth is sweetness itself, and all of him is desirable. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.
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