11 The song of Songs, which is Solomon's.
2 Let him give me the kisses of his mouth: for his love is better than wine. 3 Sweet is the smell of your perfumes; your name is as perfume running out; so the young girls give you their love. 4 Take me to you, and we will go after you: the king has taken me into his house. We will be glad and full of joy in you, we will give more thought to your love than to wine: rightly are they your lovers. 5 I am dark, but fair of form, O daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. 6 Let not your eyes be turned on me, because I am dark, because I was looked on by the sun; my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vine-gardens; but my vine-garden I have not kept.
7 Say, O love of my soul, where you give food to your flock, and where you make them take their rest in the heat of the day; why have I to be as one wandering by the flocks of your friends? 8 If you have not knowledge, O most beautiful among women, go on your way in the footsteps of the flock, and give your young goats food by the tents of the keepers.
9 I have made a comparison of you, O my love, to a horse in Pharaoh's carriages. 10 Your face is a delight with rings of hair, your neck with chains of jewels. 11 We will make you chains of gold with ornaments of silver.
12 While the king is seated at his table, my spices send out their perfume. 13 As a bag of myrrh is my well-loved one to me, when he is at rest all night between my breasts. 14 My love is to me as a branch of the cypress-tree in the vine-gardens of En-gedi. 15 See, you are fair, my love, you are fair; you have the eyes of a dove. 16 See, you are fair, my loved one, and a pleasure; our bed is green. 17 Cedar-trees are the pillars of our house; and our boards are made of fir-trees.
21 I am a rose of Sharon, a flower of the valleys. 2 As the lily-flower among the thorns of the waste, so is my love among the daughters.
3 As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my loved one among the sons. I took my rest under his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. 4 He took me to the house of wine, and his flag over me was love. 5 Make me strong with wine-cakes, let me be comforted with apples; I am overcome with love. 6 His left hand is under my head, and his right hand is round about me. 7 I say to you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes of the field, do not let love be moved till it is ready.
8 The voice of my loved one! See, he comes dancing on the mountains, stepping quickly on the hills. 9 My loved one is like a roe; see, he is on the other side of our wall, he is looking in at the windows, letting himself be seen through the spaces. 10 My loved one said to me, Get up, my love, my fair one, and come away. 11 For, see, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; 12 The flowers are come on the earth; the time of cutting the vines is come, and the voice of the dove is sounding in our land; 13 The fig-tree puts out her green fruit and the vines with their young fruit give a good smell. Get up from your bed, my beautiful one, and come away.
14 O my dove, you are in the holes of the mountain sides, in the cracks of the high hills; let me see your face, let your voice come to my ears; for sweet is your voice, and your face is fair. 15 Take for us the foxes, the little foxes, which do damage to the vines; our vines have young grapes. 16 My loved one is mine, and I am his: he takes his food among the flowers. 17 Till the evening comes, and the sky slowly becomes dark, come, my loved one, and be like a roe on the mountains of Bether.
31 By night on my bed I was looking for him who is the love of my soul: I was looking for him, but I did not see him. 2 I will get up now and go about the town, in the streets and in the wide ways I will go after him who is the love of my soul: I went after him, but I did not see him. 3 The watchmen who go about the town came by me; to them I said, Have you seen him who is my heart's desire? 4 I was but a little way from them, when I came face to face with him who is the love of my soul. I took him by the hands, and did not let him go, till I had taken him into my mother's house, and into the room of her who gave me birth. 5 I say to you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes of the field, let not love be moved till it is ready.
6 Who is this coming out of the waste places like pillars of smoke, perfumed with sweet spices, with all the spices of the trader?
7 See, it is the bed of Solomon; sixty men of war are about it, of the army of Israel, 8 All of them armed with swords, trained in war; every man has his sword at his side, because of fear in the night. 9 King Solomon made himself a bed of the wood of Lebanon. 10 He made its pillars of silver, its base of gold, its seat of purple, the middle of it of ebony. 11 Go out, O daughters of Jerusalem, and see King Solomon, with the crown which his mother put on his head on the day when he was married, and on the day of the joy of his heart.
21 Then after the space of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus with me. 2 And I went up by revelation; and I put before them the good news which I was preaching among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were of good name, so that the work which I was or had been doing might not be without effect. 3 But not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was made to undergo circumcision: 4 And that because of the false brothers let in secretly, who came searching out our free condition which we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might make servants of us; 5 To whom we gave way not even for an hour; so that the true words of the good news might still be with you. 6 But from those who seemed to be important (whatever they were has no weight with me: God does not take man's person into account): those who seemed to be important gave nothing new to me; 7 But, quite the opposite, when they saw that I had been made responsible for preaching the good news to those without circumcision, even as Peter had been for those of the circumcision 8 (Because he who was working in Peter as the Apostle of the circumcision was working no less in me among the Gentiles); 9 When they saw the grace which was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who had the name of being pillars, gave to me and Barnabas their right hands as friends so that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision; 10 Only it was their desire that we would give thought to the poor; which very thing I had much in mind to do.
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I made a protest against him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 For before certain men came from James, he did take food with the Gentiles: but when they came, he went back and made himself separate, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13 And the rest of the Jews went after him, so that even Barnabas was overcome by their false ways. 14 But when I saw that they were not living uprightly in agreement with the true words of the good news, I said to Cephas before them all, If you, being a Jew, are living like the Gentiles, and not like the Jews, how will you make the Gentiles do the same as the Jews? 15 We being Jews by birth, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16 Being conscious that a man does not get righteousness by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we had faith in Christ Jesus, so that we might get righteousness by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law will no flesh get righteousness. 17 But if, while we were desiring to get righteousness through Christ, we ourselves were seen to be sinners, is Christ a servant of sin? In no way! 18 For if I put up again those things which I gave to destruction, I am seen to be a wrongdoer. 19 For I, through the law, have become dead to the law, so that I might be living to God. 20 I have been put to death on the cross with Christ; still I am living; no longer I, but Christ is living in me; and that life which I now am living in the flesh I am living by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who in love for me, gave himself up for me. 21 I do not make the grace of God of no effect: because if righteousness is through the law, then Christ was put to death for nothing.
