1 Where has your beloved gone,
# O fairest among women?
Where has your beloved turned aside,
That we may seek him with you?
2 My beloved has gone to hisgarden,
To the beds of spices,
To feedhisflockin the gardens,
And to gather lilies.
3 Iammy beloved’s,
And my belovedismine.
He feedshisflockamong the lilies.
Praise of the Shulamite’s Beauty
4 O my love, youareasbeautiful as Tirzah,
Lovely as Jerusalem,
Awesome asanarmywith banners!
5 Turn your eyes away from me,
For they have overcome me.
# Your hairislike a flock of goats
Going down from Gilead.
6 Your teetharelike a flock of sheep
Which have come up from the washing;
Every one bears twins,
And noneisbarren among them.
7 Like a piece of pomegranate
Areyour temples behind your veil.
8 There are sixty queens
And eighty concubines,
# Andvirgins without number.
9 My dove, myperfect one,
Is the only one,
The only one of her mother,
The favorite of the one who bore her.
The daughters saw her
And called her blessed,
The queens and the concubines,
And they praised her.
10 Who is she who looks forth as the morning,
Fair as the moon,
Clear as the sun,
# Awesome asanarmywith banners?
11 I went down to the garden of nuts
To see the verdure of the valley,
# To see whether the vine had budded
Andthe pomegranates had bloomed.
12 Before I was even aware,
My soul had made me
Asthe chariots of my noble people.
13 Return, return, O Shulamite;
Return, return, that we may look upon you!
What would you see in the Shulamite—
As it were, the dance of the two camps?