¹ On my bed at night I sought the man who is my sweetheart: I sought but could not find him!

² So I shall get up and go through the city; in the streets and in the squares, I shall seek my sweetheart. I sought but could not find him!

³ I came upon the watchmen -- those who go on their rounds in the city: 'Have you seen my sweetheart?'

⁴ Barely had I passed them when I found my sweetheart. I caught him, would not let him go, not till I had brought him to my mother's house, to the room where she conceived me!

⁵ LOVER: I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, by gazelles and wild does, do not rouse, do not wake my beloved before she pleases.

⁶ POET: What is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, breathing of myrrh and frankincense and every exotic perfume?

⁷ Here comes Solomon's litter. Around it are sixty champions, the flower of the warriors of Israel;

⁸ all of them skilled swordsmen, expert in war. Each man has his sword at his side, against alarms by night.

⁹ King Solomon has had a palanquin made of wood from Lebanon.

¹⁰ He has had the posts made of silver, the canopy of gold, the seat of purple; the centre is inlaid with ebony.

¹¹ Daughters of Zion, come and see King Solomon, wearing the diadem with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day, on the day of his heart's joy.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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