1In the nights on my bed
I sought him whom my nefesh loveth;
I sought him, but I found him not.

2So I will rise then, and go about the city
in the streets, and in the rechovot (open squares, places);
I will seek him whom my nefesh loveth;
I sought him, but found him not.

3The shomrim (watchmen) that go about the city found me;
to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my nefesh loveth?

4Scarcely had I passed from them,
when I found him whom my nefesh loveth;
I held him, and would not let him go,
until I had brought him into the bais immi (the house of my mother),
and into the cheder of her that conceived me.

5I charge you, O ye banot Yerushalayim,
by the gazelles, and by the deer of the sadeh,
that ye arouse nor awake HaAhavah
till it pleases. ⁴

6Who is this that cometh out of the midbar
like pillars of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and frankincense
from all the fragrant powders of the rokhel (merchant)?

7Hinei, his conveyance, ⁵which is Sh'lomoʼs;
threescore gibborim (valiant men) are around it,
the Gibborei Yisroel.

8They all hold swords,
being expert in milchamah (war);
every man hath his cherev (sword) at his side
against the pachad (terror, dread) of the nights.

9HaMelech Sh'lomo made himself an appiryon (palanquin), ⁶
of the wood of the Levanon.

10He made the pillars thereof of kesef,
the support thereof of zahav,
the cushion of it of purple,
the interior thereof being inlaid with Ahavah,
by the banot Yerushalayim.

11Come out, O ye banot Tziyon,
and behold Sh'lomo HaMelech
with the atarah (crown) wherewith his em crowned him
in the Yom Chasunoh (day of his wedding),
and in the Yom Simchat Libo (day of the gladness of his heart). ⁷