The Beloved to Her Lover: Make haste, my beloved! Be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices.

What more can I do for my vineyard beyond what I have already done? When I waited for it to produce edible grapes, why did it produce sour ones instead?

At that time ¹  Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, ²  the typical life span of a king. ³  At the end of seventy years Tyre will try to attract attention again, like the prostitute in the popular song: ⁴ 

Go up to Gilead and get medicinal ointment, ¹  you dear poor people of Egypt. ²  But it will prove useless no matter how much medicine you use; ³  there will be no healing for you.

But suddenly Babylonia will fall and be destroyed. ¹  Cry out in mourning over it! Get medicine for her wounds! Perhaps she can be healed!

Judah and the land of Israel were your clients; they traded wheat from Minnith, ¹  millet, honey, olive oil, and balm for your merchandise.

Their heart is slipping; soon they will be punished for their guilt. The Lord ¹  will break their altars; he will completely destroy their fertility pillars.

His young shoots will grow; his splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.

Can horses run on rocky cliffs? Can one plow the sea with oxen? ¹  Yet you have turned justice into a poisonous plant, and the fruit of righteous actions into a bitter plant. ² 

Indeed, the residents of Maroth ¹  hope for something good to happen, ²  though the Lord has sent disaster against the city of Jerusalem. ³ 

I will bring them back from Egypt and gather them from Assyria. ¹  I will bring them to the lands of Gilead and Lebanon, for there will not be enough room for them in their own land.

For these are the kind who do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By their smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds ¹  of the naive.

Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition ¹  or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself.

Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters, ¹  or a vine produce figs? Neither can a salt water spring produce fresh water.

cinnamon, spice, ¹  incense, perfumed ointment, ²  frankincense, ³  wine, olive oil and costly flour, ⁴  wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and four-wheeled carriages, ⁵  slaves and human lives. ⁶ 

The Lover to His Beloved: I have entered my garden, O my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my balsam spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk! The Poet to the Couple: ¹  Eat, friends, and drink! ²  Drink freely, O lovers!

And each of you ¹  take his censer, put ²  incense in it, and then each of you present his censer before the Lord: 250 censers, along with you, and Aaron – each of you with his censer.”

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the censer, put burning coals from the altar in it, place incense on it, and go quickly into the assembly and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord – the plague has begun!”

The total weight of the gold earrings he requested came to seventeen hundred gold shekels. ¹  This was in addition to the crescent-shaped ornaments, jewelry, ²  purple clothing worn by the Midianite kings, and the necklaces on the camels. ³ 

So bathe yourself, ¹  rub on some perfumed oil, ²  and get dressed up. ³  Then go down ⁴  to the threshing floor. But don’t let the man know you’re there until he finishes his meal. ⁵