1“Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned aside? Let us seek him with you.”

2My beloved went down to his garden, To the beds of spices, To feed his flock in the gardens, And to gather lilies.

3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies.

4O my love, you are as fair as Tirtsah, Lovely as Yerushalayim, Awesome as an army with banners!

5Turn your eyes away from me, Because they overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats That have hopped down from Gil‛aḏ.

6Your teeth are like a flock of sheep That have come up from the washing; All of them bear twins, And not one among them has lost her young.

7Your cheeks behind your veil are like a piece of pomegranate.

8There are sixty sovereignesses and eighty concubines, And innumerable maidens.

9My dove, my perfect one, Is the only one, the only one of her mother, The choice of the one who bore her. The daughters saw, and called her blessed, Sovereignesses and concubines, And they praised her.

10Who is she who shines forth as the morning, Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, Awesome as an army with banners?

11I went down to the garden of nuts To see the budding of the wadi, To see whether the vine had budded and the pomegranates had bloomed.

12I did not know, my desire made me as the chariots of my noble people.

13Return, return, O Shulammith; Return, return, and let us look upon you! Why should you look upon the Shulammith, As it were the dance of two armies?