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6. Friends

¹ Where has your beloved gone,
most beautiful of women?
Which way did your beloved turn,
that we may look for him with you?

She

    ² My beloved has gone down to his garden,
   to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens
   and to gather lilies.
³ I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;
   he browses among the lilies.

    ⁴ You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling,
   as lovely as Jerusalem,
   as majestic as troops with banners.
⁵ Turn your eyes from me;
   they overwhelm me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
   descending from Gilead.
⁶ Your teeth are like a flock of sheep
   coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin,
   not one of them is missing.
⁷ Your temples behind your veil
   are like the halves of a pomegranate.
⁸ Sixty queens there may be,
   and eighty concubines,
   and virgins beyond number;
⁹ but my dove, my perfect one, is unique,
   the only daughter of her mother,
   the favorite of the one who bore her.
The young women saw her and called her blessed;
   the queens and concubines praised her.

Friends

    ¹⁰ Who is this that appears like the dawn,
   fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
   majestic as the stars in procession?

    ¹¹ I went down to the grove of nut trees
   to look at the new growth in the valley,
to see if the vines had budded
   or the pomegranates were in bloom.
¹² Before I realized it,
   my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people. Or among the chariots of Amminadab; or among the chariots of the people of the prince

Friends

¹³ Come back, come back, O Shulammite;
come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!

Why would you gaze on the Shulammite
as on the dance of Mahanaim? In Hebrew texts this verse (6:13) is numbered 7:1.