Song of Solomon 3

⁸Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

⁶I opened for my beloved, but he had turned and gone. My heart sank at his departure. I sought him but did not find him. I called, but he did not answer.

⁷Tell me, O one I love, where do you pasture your sheep? Where do you rest them at midday? Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your companions?

⁹My soul longs for You in the night; indeed, my spirit seeks You at dawn. For when Your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.

⁶Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.

⁸O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you, if you find my beloved, tell him I am sick with love.

¹⁴So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

¹¹And do this, understanding the occasion. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

⁷No one calls on Your name or strives to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

²⁰Wisdom calls out in the street, she lifts her voice in the square;

²¹in the main concourse she cries aloud, at the city gates she makes her speech:

¹For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Doe of the Dawn.” A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning?

²I cry out by day, O my God, but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest.

⁵I rose up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh on the handles of the bolt.

⁷I encountered the watchmen on their rounds of the city. They beat me and bruised me; they took away my cloak, those guardians of the walls.

¹⁵“Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asked. “Whom are you seeking?” Thinking He was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Him off, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.”

²“Son of man, speak to your people and tell them: ‘Suppose I bring the sword against a land, and the people of that land choose a man from among them, appointing him as their watchman,

³and he sees the sword coming against that land and blows the ram’s horn to warn the people.

¹¹This is the burden against Dumah: One calls to me from Seir, “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?”

¹²The watchman replies, “Morning has come, but also the night. If you would inquire, then inquire. Come back yet again.”

⁶For this is what the Lord says to me: “Go, post a lookout and have him report what he sees.

⁷When he sees chariots with teams of horsemen, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, he must be alert, fully alert.”

¹⁰Israel’s watchmen are blind, they are all oblivious; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they are dreamers lying around, loving to slumber.

¹⁷I love those who love me, and those who seek me early shall find me.

⁷Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

¹²Before I realized it, my desire had set me among the royal chariots of my people.

²I would lead you and bring you to the house of my mother who taught me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the nectar of my pomegranates.

¹³Hold on to instruction; do not let go. Guard it, for it is your life.

⁶Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.

⁷Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

⁷O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you by the gazelles and does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.

⁴O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you: Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.

⁸And you, O watchtower of the flock, O stronghold of the Daughter of Zion—the former dominion will be restored to you; sovereignty will come to the Daughter of Jerusalem.”

⁵Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? I roused you under the apple tree; there your mother conceived you; there she travailed and brought you forth.

¹⁴But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle to fly from the presence of the serpent to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.

⁶Before the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will make my way to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.

¹³My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.

¹⁹Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

²Remember that these forty years the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.

²⁷Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place and committed them to the care of the captains of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace.

¹⁴Are not the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

¹⁷Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

²David replied, “Then you will come to know what your servant can do.” “Very well,” said Achish. “I will make you my bodyguard for life.”

¹⁶How handsome you are, my beloved! Oh, how delightful! The soft grass is our bed.

⁵²And the war with the Philistines was fierce for all the days of Saul. So whenever he noticed any strong or brave man, Saul would enlist him.

³Strap your sword at your side, O mighty warrior; appear in your majesty and splendor.

¹⁶In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

¹⁷And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

⁵Let the saints exult in glory; let them shout for joy upon their beds.

⁶May the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a double-edged sword in their hands,

³I, the Lord, am its keeper; I water it continually. I guard it night and day so no one can disturb it;

²¹So we continued the work, while half of the men held spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out.

²²At that time I also said to the people, “Let every man and his servant spend the night inside Jerusalem, so that they can stand guard by night and work by day.”

⁶So then, let us not sleep as the others do, but let us remain awake and sober.

⁷For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.

⁷Behold, it is Solomon’s carriage, escorted by sixty of the mightiest men of Israel.

⁵Is not my house right with God? For He has established with me an everlasting covenant, ordered and secured in every part. Will He not bring about my full salvation and my every desire?

⁶Then I saw another angel flying overhead, with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.

⁸But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

¹²The one who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will never again leave it. Upon him I will write the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God (the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from My God), and My new name.

¹⁸will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth

¹⁹of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

³Glorious things are ascribed to you, O city of God. Selah

⁵I am dark, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

¹⁵in case I am delayed, so that you will know how each one must conduct himself in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

¹⁶By common confession, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was proclaimed among the nations, was believed in throughout the world, was taken up in glory.

⁵For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.

²“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the Lord says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

¹⁹So I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in loving devotion and compassion.

²⁰And I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will know the Lord.”

¹⁴that I may declare all Your praises—that within the gates of Daughter Zion I may rejoice in Your salvation.

⁷Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him—even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen.

¹³Therefore let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore.