How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. 2 Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. 3 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. 4 Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus. 5 Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses.[a]
6 How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden![b] 7 You are stately[c] as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. 8 I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. O may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, 9 and your kisses[d] like the best wine that goes down[e] smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.[f]
10 I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. 11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; 12 let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. 13 The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.
Footnotes
a. Song of Solomon 7:5 Meaning of Heb uncertain
b. Song of Solomon 7:6 Syr: Heb in delights
c. Song of Solomon 7:7 Heb This your stature is
d. Song of Solomon 7:9 Heb palate
e. Song of Solomon 7:9 Heb down for my lover
f. Song of Solomon 7:9 Gk Syr Vg: Heb lips of sleepers
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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