Reading. Song of songs 4:1-16, GNB
Song of Songs 4:1-16
[1]How beautiful you are, my love! How your eyes shine with love behind your veil. Your hair dances, like a flock of goats bounding down the hills of Gilead.
[2]Your teeth are as white as sheep that have just been shorn and washed. Not one of them is missing; they are all perfectly matched.
[3]Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; how lovely they are when you speak. Your cheeks glow behind your veil.
[4]Your neck is like the tower of David, round and smooth, with a necklace like a thousand shields hung round it.
[5]Your breasts are like gazelles, twin deer feeding among lilies.
[6]I will stay on the hill of myrrh, the hill of incense, until the morning breezes blow and the darkness disappears.
[7]How beautiful you are, my love; how perfect you are!
[8]Come with me from the Lebanon Mountains, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Come down from the top of Mount Amana, from Mount Senir and Mount Hermon, where the lions and leopards live.
[9]The look in your eyes, my sweetheart and bride, and the necklace you are wearing have stolen my heart.
[10]Your love delights me, my sweetheart and bride. Your love is better than wine; your perfume more fragrant than any spice.
[11]The taste of honey is on your lips, my darling; your tongue is milk and honey for me. Your clothing has all the fragrance of Lebanon.
[12]My sweetheart, my bride, is a secret garden, a walled garden, a private spring;
[13]there the plants flourish. They grow like an orchard of pomegranate trees and bear the finest fruits. There is no lack of henna and nard,
[14]of saffron, calamus, and cinnamon, or incense of every kind. Myrrh and aloes grow there with all the most fragrant perfumes.
[15]Fountains water the garden, streams of flowing water, brooks gushing down from the Lebanon Mountains.
[16]Wake up, North Wind. South Wind, blow on my garden; fill the air with fragrance. Let my lover come to his garden and eat the best of its fruits.