The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Tuesday September 6, 2022 (NIV)

² Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
Your expressions of love are better than wine,
³ better than the fragrance of cologne.
(Cologne should be named after you.)
No wonder the young women love you!
⁴ Take me with you. Let’s run away.
The king has brought me into his private rooms.

We will celebrate and rejoice with you.
We will praise your expressions of love more than wine.
How right it is that the young women love you!

⁵ Young women of Jerusalem, I am dark and lovely
like Kedar’s tents,
like Solomon’s curtains.
⁶ Stop staring at me because I am so dark.
The sun has tanned me.
My brothers were angry with me.
They made me the caretaker of the vineyards.
I have not even taken care of my own vineyard.
⁷ Please tell me, you whom I love, where do you graze your flock?
Where does your flock lie down at noon?
⌞Tell me,⌟ or I will be considered a prostitute
⌞wandering⌟ among the flocks of your companions.

⁸ If you do not know, most beautiful of women,
follow the tracks of the flocks,
and graze your young goats near the shepherds’ tents.

⁹ My true love, I compare you to a mare among Pharaoh’s stallions.
¹⁰ Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments,
your neck with strings of pearls.

¹¹ We will make gold ornaments with silver beads for you.

¹² While the king is at his table,
my perfume fills the air with its fragrance.
¹³ My beloved is a pouch of myrrh ^[a]
that lies at night between my breasts.
¹⁴ My beloved is a bouquet of henna flowers
in the vineyards of En Gedi.

¹⁵ Look at you! You are beautiful, my true love!
Look at you! You are so beautiful!
Your eyes are like doves!

¹⁶ Look at you! You are handsome, my beloved, so pleasing to me!
The leaf-scattered ground will be our couch.
¹⁷ The cedars will be the walls of our house.
The cypress trees will be our rafters.
2 I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily ⌞growing⌟ in the valleys.

² Like a lily among thorns,
so is my true love among the young women.

³ Like an apple tree among the trees in the forest,
so is my beloved among the young men.
I want to sit in his shadow.
His fruit tastes sweet to me.
⁴ He leads me into a banquet room
and looks at me with love.
⁵ Strengthen me with raisins
and refresh me with apples
because I am weak from love.
⁶ His left hand is under my head.
His right hand caresses me.

⁸ I hear my beloved’s voice.
Look! Here he comes,
sprinting over the mountains,
racing over the hills.
⁹ My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
peeking through the window,
looking through the lattice.
¹⁰ My beloved said to me,
“Get up, my true love, my beautiful one, and come with me.
¹¹ Look! The winter is past.
The rain is over and gone.
¹² Blossoms appear in the land.
The time of the songbird has arrived.
The cooing of the mourning dove is heard in our land.
¹³ The green figs ripen.
The grapevines bloom and give off a fragrance.
Get up, my true love, my beautiful one, and come with me.
¹⁴ My dove, in the hiding places of the rocky crevices,
in the secret places of the cliffs,
let me see your figure and hear your voice.
Your voice is sweet, and your figure is lovely.”

3 Night after night on my bed
I looked for the one I love.
I looked for him but did not find him.
² I will get up now and roam around the city,
in the streets, and in the squares.
I will look for the one I love.
I looked for him but did not find him.
³ The watchmen making their rounds in the city found me.
⌞I asked,⌟ “Have you seen the one I love?”
⁴ I had just left them when I found the one I love.
I held on to him and would not let him go
until I had brought him into my mother’s house,
into the bedroom of the one who conceived me.

⁶ Who is this young woman coming up from the wilderness
like clouds of smoke?
She is perfumed with myrrh and incense
made from the merchants’ scented powders.
⁷ Look! Solomon’s sedan chair! ^[b]
Sixty soldiers from the army of Israel surround it.
⁸ All of them are skilled in using swords,
experienced in combat.
Each one has his sword at his side
and guards against the terrors of the night.
⁹ King Solomon had a carriage made for himself
from the wood of Lebanon.
¹⁰ He had its posts made out of silver,
its top out of gold,
its seat out of purple fabric.
Its inside—with inlaid scenes of love—
was made by the young women of Jerusalem.
¹¹ Young women of Zion, come out and look at King Solomon!
Look at his crown,
the crown his mother placed on him on his wedding day,
his day of joyful delight.

4 Look at you! You are beautiful, my true love.
Look at you! You are so beautiful.
Your eyes behind your veil are like doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down Mount Gilead.
² Your teeth are like a flock of sheep about to be sheared,
sheep that come up from the washing.
All of them bear twins, and not one has lost its young.
³ Your lips are like scarlet thread.
Your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil are like slices of pomegranate.
⁴ Your neck is like David’s beautifully-designed tower.
A thousand round shields belonging to soldiers
are hung on it.
⁵ Your breasts are like two fawns,
like twin gazelles grazing among the lilies.
⁶ When the day brings a cool breeze and the shadows flee,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of incense.
⁷ You are beautiful in every way, my true love.
There is no blemish on you.
⁸ You will come with me from Lebanon,
from Lebanon as my bride.
You will travel with me
from the peak of Mount Amana,
from the mountain peaks in Senir and Hermon,
from the lairs of lions,
from the mountains of leopards.
⁹ My bride, my sister, you have charmed me.^[c]
You have charmed me
with a single glance from your eyes,
with a single strand of your necklace.
¹⁰ How beautiful are your expressions of love, my bride, my sister!
How much better are your expressions of love than wine
and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice.
¹¹ Your lips drip honey, my bride.
Honey and milk are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your clothing is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
¹² My bride, my sister is a garden that is locked,
a garden that is locked,
a spring that is sealed.
¹³ You are paradise that produces
pomegranates and the best fruits,
henna flowers and nard,
¹⁴ nard and saffron,
calamus,^[d] cinnamon, and all kinds of incense,^[e]
myrrh, aloes, and all the best spices.
¹⁵ ⌞You are⌟ a spring for gardens,
a well of living water flowing from Lebanon.

¹⁶ Awake, north wind!
Come, south wind!
Blow on my garden!
Let its spices flow from it.
Let my beloved come to his garden,
and let him eat his own precious fruit.

50 The Lord, the only true God, has spoken.
He has summoned the earth
from where the sun rises to where it sets.
² God shines from Zion,
the perfection of beauty.
³ Our God will come and will not remain silent.
A devouring fire is in front of him
and a raging storm around him.
⁴ He summons heaven and earth to judge his people:
⁵ “Gather around me, my godly people
who have made a pledge to me through sacrifices.”

²² Do not rob the poor because they are poor
or trample on the rights of an oppressed person at the city gate,
²³ because the Lord will plead their case
and will take the lives of those who rob them.