Song of Songs 8 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Longing for Her Beloved

Sng 8:1Oh that you were like a brother to me
who nursed at my mother’s breasts!
If I found you outside, I would kiss you,
and none would despise me.

Sng 8:2

Sng 8:2I would lead you and bring you
into the house of my mother—
she who used to teach me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
the juice of my pomegranate.

Sng 8:3

Sng 8:3His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand embraces me!

Sng 8:4

Sng 8:4I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
that you not stir up or awaken love
until it pleases.

Sng 8:5

Sng 8:5Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
leaning on her beloved?
Under the apple tree I awakened you.
There your mother was in labor with you;
there she who bore you was in labor.

Sng 8:6

Sng 8:6Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy[fn] is fierce as the grave.[fn]
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the LORD.

Sng 8:7

Sng 8:7Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he[fn] would be utterly despised.

Final Advice

Sng 8:8

Sng 8:8Others
We have a little sister,
and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
on the day when she is spoken for?

Sng 8:9

Sng 8:9If she is a wall,
we will build on her a battlement of silver,
but if she is a door,
we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

Sng 8:10

Sng 8:10She
I was a wall,
and my breasts were like towers;
then I was in his eyes
as one who finds[fn] peace.

Sng 8:11

Sng 8:11Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
he let out the vineyard to keepers;
each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.

Sng 8:12

Sng 8:12My vineyard, my very own, is before me;
you, O Solomon, may have the thousand,
and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.

Sng 8:13

Sng 8:13He
O you who dwell in the gardens,
with companions listening for your voice;
let me hear it.

Sng 8:14

Sng 8:14She
Make haste, my beloved,
and be like a gazelle
or a young stag
on the mountains of spices.

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

Or ardor

Hebrew as Sheol

Or it

Or brings out

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For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.