1 I enter my garden, my sister, my bride! I gather myrrh with my spice. I eat my honeycomb with my honey. I drink wine with my milk. Let us eat our fill of love! Let us be drunk with love! 2 Though I was asleep, my mind was racing. I heard my love knocking, and calling out, “Please open the door, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect love. My head is soaked with dew, my hair is wet from the night mist.” 3 I replied, “I've already got undressed. I don't have to get dressed again, do I? I've already washed my feet. I don't have to make them dirty again, do I?” 4 My love thrust his hand into the opening. Deep inside I longed for him. 5 I got up to let my love in. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, as I grabbed the handles of the bolt. 6 I opened up to my love, but he had left—he was gone! I was crushed as a result. I looked for him but I couldn't find him. I called him but he didn't answer. 7 The watchmen found me as they went through the city. They beat me, they hurt me, and stole my cloak, those watchmen of the walls. 8 Women of Jerusalem, promise me if you find my love and wonder what you should tell him, tell him I am weak with love. 9 Why is the one you love better than any other, most beautiful of women? In what way is the one you love better than any other that we should promise you that? 10 My love has dazzling good looks and is very fit—better than ten thousand others! 11 His head is like the finest gold, his hair is wavy and black as the raven. 12 His eyes are like doves beside springs of water, washed with milk and mounted like sparkling jewels. 13 His cheeks are like a flowerbed of spices that produces fragrance. His lips are like lilies, dripping with liquid myrrh. 14 His arms are round bars of gold inlaid with jewels. His abdomen is like carved ivory inlaid with lapis lazuli. 15 His legs are columns of alabaster set on bases of gold. He looks strong, like the mighty cedars of Lebanon. 16 His mouth is the sweetest ever; he is totally desirable! This is my love, my friend, women of Jerusalem.
Song of Songs · Free Bible Version
Song of Songs 5 Free Bible Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
Cross references (16)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Song of Songs 6:2; Song of Songs 4:16; Revelation 22:17; Song of Songs 4:9–14; Isaiah 55:1–2
- 2 Revelation 3:20; Song of Songs 2:14; Song of Songs 6:9; Zechariah 4:1; Psalm 119:1
- 3 Luke 11:7; Romans 7:22–23; Proverbs 22:13; Matthew 26:38–43; Proverbs 3:28
- 4 Philippians 2:13; Song of Songs 1:4; Acts 16:14; 2 Corinthians 8:16; 1 Kings 3:26
- 5 Song of Songs 5:13; Ephesians 3:17; Song of Songs 4:13–14; Revelation 3:20; 2 Corinthians 7:9–11
- 6 Song of Songs 5:2; Revelation 3:19; Hosea 5:15; Hosea 5:6; Isaiah 58:2
- 7 Song of Songs 3:3; Matthew 23:2; Hosea 6:5; Psalm 141:5; John 16:2
- 8 Song of Songs 2:5; Song of Songs 2:7; Psalm 42:1–3; Song of Songs 3:5; Galatians 6:1–2
- 9 Song of Songs 6:1; Song of Songs 1:8; Song of Songs 6:9–10; Psalm 45:13; Isaiah 53:2
- 10 Psalm 45:2; Psalm 45:17; Song of Songs 2:1; Philippians 2:9–11; Hebrews 7:26
- 11 Song of Songs 7:5; Revelation 1:14; Song of Songs 5:2; Daniel 7:9; Ephesians 1:21–22
- 12 Song of Songs 4:1; Song of Songs 1:15; Hebrews 4:13
- 13 Song of Songs 1:10; Song of Songs 2:1; Song of Songs 6:2; Song of Songs 4:11; Psalm 89:15
- 14 Exodus 24:10; Isaiah 54:11; Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 52:13; Ezekiel 1:16
- 15 1 Kings 4:33; Revelation 1:15–16; Acts 2:28; Hosea 14:7; Psalm 92:12
- 16 Psalm 45:2; Song of Songs 7:9; Psalm 119:103; Galatians 2:20; Song of Songs 1:16
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
I am come into My garden, My sister, My spouse; (now in the place where He was crucified was a garden;) and what takest Thou thence?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)
Filled with these thoughts may you, even in sleep, enjoy the pleasure of the day, so that you may be permitted to say, "I sleep but my heart waketh," meditating day and night upon the law of the Lord, to Whom be glory and power world without end.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 8 (1895)
… begotten, and for forgiveness of sins; even as it was emblematically foretold that Christ should be thus manifested in the appearance of His eyes; for in the Canticles she cries concerning the Bridegroom, and says, Thine eyes are as doves by the rivers of water.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)