1 Return, return, O Sunamite; return, return, and we will look at thee.
What will ye see in the Sunamite? She comes as bands of armies.
2 Thy steps are beautiful in shoes, O daughter of the prince: the joints of thy thighs are like chains, the work of the craftsman. 3 Thy navel is as a turned bowl, not wanting liquor; thy belly is as a heap of wheat set about with lilies. 4 Thy two breasts are as two twin fawns. 5 Thy neck is as an ivory tower; thine eyes are as pools in Esebon, by the gates of the daughter of many: thy nose is as the tower of Libanus, looking toward Damascus. 6 Thy head upon thee is as Carmel, and the curls of thy hair like scarlet; the king is bound in the galleries. 7 How beautiful art thou, and how sweet art thou, my love! 8 This is thy greatness in thy delights: thou wast made like a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters. 9 I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of its high boughs: and now shall thy breasts be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose as apples; 10 and thy throat as good wine, going well with my kinsman, suiting my lips and teeth.
11 I am my kinsman's, and his desire is toward me. 12 Come, my kinsman, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. 13 Let us go early into the vineyards; let us see if the vine has flowered, if the blossoms have appeared, if the pomegranates have blossomed; there will I give thee my breasts. 14 The mandrakes have given a smell, and at our doors are all kinds of choice fruits, new and old. O my kinsman, I have kept them for thee.
About this text. This is Sir Lancelot Brenton’s 1851 translation of the Septuagint — the Greek Old Testament the Orthodox Church reads, rather than the Hebrew text behind most English Bibles. It is in the public domain. Words in italics are ones Brenton supplied that the Greek does not have; he marked them so that a reader could tell the difference, and they are kept that way here. The numbered notes are his own. Its English is Victorian, and does not match the modern English of the New Testament pages on this site.