The Maidens to The Beloved: Why is your beloved better than others, ¹  O most beautiful of women? Why is your beloved better than others, that you would command us in this manner?

The Beloved to the Maidens: I admonish you, O maidens ¹  of Jerusalem: “Do not ²  arouse or awaken love until it pleases!”

You must be truthful, honest and upright when you take an oath saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’ ¹  If you do, ²  the nations will pray to be as blessed by him as you are and will make him the object of their boasting.” ³ 

The Lord who rules over all ¹  has solemnly sworn, ²  ‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers. They will swarm over it like locusts. ³  They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’

The Lord confirms this oath ¹  by the arrogance of Jacob: ²  “I swear ³  I will never forget all you have done! ⁴ 

You will be loyal to Jacob and extend your loyal love to Abraham, ¹  which you promised on oath to our ancestors ²  in ancient times. ³ 

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph ¹  had made the Israelites solemnly swear, ²  “God will surely attend ³  to you, and you will carry ⁴  my bones up from this place with you.”

“As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, ¹  when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood ²  would never again cover the earth. In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you.

But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. ¹  Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. ²  But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” ³  If they do these things, ⁴  then they will be included among the people I call my own. ⁵ 

and said, “‘I solemnly swear by my own name,’ ¹  decrees the Lord, ²  ‘that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,

so that I may make you solemnly promise ¹  by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth: You must not acquire ²  a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living.

So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and gave his solemn promise he would carry out his wishes. ¹ 

My master made me swear an oath. He said, ‘You must not acquire a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living,

May the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor, ¹  the gods of their father, judge between us.” Jacob took an oath by the God whom his father Isaac feared. ² 

Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He said, “God will surely come to you. Then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

When the Lord brings you ¹  into the land of the Canaanites, ²  as he swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it ³  to you,

or has found something lost and denies it and swears falsely ¹  concerning any one of the things that someone might do to sin ²  –

‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to them, he killed them in the wilderness.’

“Not a single person ¹  of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors!

(for he ¹  is a merciful God), he will not let you down ²  or destroy you, for he cannot ³  forget the covenant with your ancestors that he confirmed by oath to them.