By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

2I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

3The watchmen that go about the city found me: {to whom I said}, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

4{It was} but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

5I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake {my} love, till he please.

6Who {is} this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?

7Behold his bed, which {is} Solomon's; threescore valiant men {are} about it, of the valiant of Israel.

8They all hold swords, {being} expert in war: every man {hath} his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.

9King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. {a chariot: or, a bed}

10He made the pillars thereof {of} silver, the bottom thereof {of} gold, the covering of it {of} purple, the midst thereof being paved {with} love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.

11Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.