1 [Young Woman:] "One night as I lay in bed, I yearned deeply for my lover, but he did not come.
2 So I said to myself, `I will get up now and roam the city, searching for him in all its streets and squares.' But my search was in vain.
3 The watchmen stopped me as they made their rounds, and I said to them, `Have you seen him anywhere, this one I love so much?'
4 A little while later I found him and held him. I didn't let him go until I had brought him to my childhood home, into my mother's bedroom, where I had been conceived.
5 "Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the swift gazelles and the deer of the wild, not to awaken love until the time is right.*" [Young Women of Jerusalem:]1
6 "Who is this sweeping in from the deserts like a cloud of smoke along the ground? Who is it that smells of myrrh and frankincense and every other spice?
7 Look, it is Solomon's carriage, with sixty of Israel's mightiest men surrounding it.
8 They are all skilled swordsmen and experienced warriors. Each one wears a sword on his thigh, ready to defend the king against an attack during the night.
9 "King Solomon has built a carriage for himself from wood imported from Lebanon's forests.
10 Its posts are of silver, its canopy is gold, and its seat is upholstered in purple cloth. Its interior was a gift of love from the young women of Jerusalem." [Young Woman:]
11 "Go out to look upon King Solomon, O young women of Jerusalem.* See the crown with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day, the day of his gladness."2
Read Song of Solomon 4
