Song of Solomon, 8

1. Oh, that you were my brother, nursed at my mother's breasts! If I met you out of doors, I would kiss you and none would taunt me.

2. I would lead you, bring you in to the home of my mother. There you would teach me to give you spiced wine to drink and pomegranate juice.

3. His left hand is under my head and his right arm embraces me.

4. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and hinds of the field, Do not arouse, do not stir up love, before its own time.

5. Who is this coming up from the desert, leaning upon her lover? G Under the apple tree I awakened you; it was there that your mother conceived you, it was there that your parent conceived.

6. Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; For stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire.

7. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away. Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would be roundly mocked.

8. "Our sister is little and she has no breasts as yet. What shall we do for our sister when her courtship begins?

9. If she is a wall, we will build upon it a silver parapet; If she is a door, we will reinforce it with a cedar plank."

10. I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. So now in his eyes I have become one to be welcomed.

11. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he gave over the vineyard to caretakers. For its fruit one would have to pay a thousand silver pieces.

12. My vineyard is at my own disposal; the thousand pieces are for you, O Solomon, and two hundred for the caretakers of its fruit.

13. O garden-dweller, my friends are listening for your voice, let me hear it!

14. Be swift, my lover, like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices!