Catholic Public Domain Version – Page 72 – Catholic Public Domain Version

Song of Songs 5

1 Bride: May my beloved enter into his garden, and eat the fruit of his apple trees.

2 Groom to Bride: I have arrived in my garden, O my sister, my spouse. I have harvested my myrrh, with my aromatic oils. I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, O most beloved.

3 Bride: I sleep, yet my heart watches. The voice of my beloved knocking:

4 Groom to Bride: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my immaculate one. For my head is full of dew, and the locks of my hair are full of the drops of the night.

5 Bride: I have taken off my tunic; how shall I be clothed in it? I have washed my feet; how shall I spoil them?

6 My beloved put his hand through the window, and my inner self was moved by his touch.

7 I rose up in order to open to my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the finest myrrh.

8 I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved. But he had turned aside and had gone away. My soul melted when he spoke. I sought him, and did not find him. I called, and he did not answer me.

9 The keepers who circulate through the city found me. They struck me, and wounded me. The keepers of the walls took my veil away from me.

10 I bind you by oath, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, announce to him that I languish through love.

11 Chorus to Bride: What kind of beloved is your beloved, O most beautiful among women? What kind of beloved is your beloved, so that you would bind us by oath?

12 Bride: My beloved is white and ruddy, elect among thousands.

13 His head is like the finest gold. His locks are like the heights of palm trees, and as black as a raven.

14 His eyes are like doves, which have been washed with milk over rivulets of waters, and which reside near plentiful streams.

15 His cheeks are like a courtyard of aromatic plants, sown by perfumers. His lips are like lilies, dripping with the best myrrh.

16 His hands are smoothed gold, full of hyacinths. His abdomen is ivory, accented with sapphires.

17 His legs are columns of marble, which have been established over bases of gold. His appearance is like that of Lebanon, elect like the cedars.

18 His throat is most sweet, and he is entirely desirable. Such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

19 Chorus to Bride: Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? To where has your beloved turned aside, so that we may seek him with you?

Song of Songs

Song of Songs 6

1 Bride: My beloved has descended to his garden, to the courtyard of aromatic plants, in order to pasture in the gardens and gather the lilies.

2 I am for my beloved, and my beloved is for me. He pastures among the lilies.

3 Groom to Bride: My love, you are beautiful: sweet and graceful, like Jerusalem; terrible, like an army in battle array.

4 Avert your eyes from me, for they have caused me fly away. Your hair is like a flock of goats, which have appeared out of Gilead.

5 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep, which have ascended from the washing, each one with its identical twin, and not one among them is barren.

6 Like the skin of a pomegranate, so are your cheeks, except for your hiddenness.

7 There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and maidens without number.

8 One is my dove, my perfect one. One is her mother; elect is she who bore her. The daughters saw her, and they proclaimed her most blessed. The queens and concubines saw her, and they praised her.

9 Chorus to Groom: Who is she, who advances like the rising dawn, as beautiful as the moon, as elect as the sun, as terrible as an army in battle array?

10 Bride: I descended to the garden of nuts, in order to see the fruits of the steep valleys, and to examine whether the vineyard had flourished and the pomegranates had produced buds.

11 I did not understand. My soul was stirred up within me because of the chariots of Amminadab.

12 Chorus to Bride: Return, return, O Sulamitess. Return, return, so that we may consider you.

Song of Songs

Song of Songs 7

1 Chorus to Groom: What will you see in the Sulamitess, other than choruses of encampments?

2 Chorus to Bride: How beautiful are your footsteps in shoes, O daughter of a ruler! The joints of your thighs are like jewels, which have been fabricated by the hand of an artist.

3 Your navel is a round bowl, never lacking in curvature. Your abdomen is like a bundle of wheat, surrounded with lilies.

4 Your two breasts are like two young twin does.

5 Your neck is like a tower of ivory. Your eyes like the fish ponds at Heshbon, which are at the entrance to the daughter of the multitude. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, which looks out toward Damascus.

6 Your head is like Carmel, and the hairs of your head are like the purple of the king, bound into pleats.

7 Most beloved one, how beautiful you are, and how graceful in delights!

8 Your stature is comparable to the palm tree, and your breasts to clusters of grapes.

9 Groom: I said, I will ascend to the palm tree, and take hold of its fruit. And your breasts will be like clusters of grapes on the vine. And the fragrance of your mouth will be like apples.

10 Bride: Your throat is like the finest wine: wine worthy for my beloved to drink, and for his lips and teeth to contemplate.

11 I am for my beloved, and his turning is to me.

12 Approach, my beloved. Let us go out into the field; let us linger in the villages.

13 Let us go up in the morning to the vineyards; let us see if the vineyard has flourished, if the flowers are ready to bear fruit, if the pomegranates have flourished. There I will give my breasts to you.

14 The mandrakes yield their fragrance. At our gates is every fruit. The new and the old, my beloved, I have kept for you.

Song of Songs

Song of Songs 8

1 Bride to Groom: Who will give you to me as my brother, feeding from the breasts of my mother, so that I may discover you outside, and may kiss you, and so that now no one may despise me?

2 I will take hold of you and lead you into my mother’s house. There you will teach me, and I will give you a cup of spiced wine, and of new wine from my pomegranates.

3 His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.

4 Groom to Chorus: I bind you by oath, O daughters of Jerusalem, not to disturb or awaken the beloved, until she wills.

5 Chorus to Groom: Who is she, who ascends from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?

6 Groom to Bride: Under the apple tree, I awakened you. There your mother was corrupted. There she who bore you was violated.

7 Set me like a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm. For love is strong, like death, and envy is enduring, like hell: their lamps are made of fire and flames.

8 A multitude of waters cannot extinguish love, nor can a river overwhelm it. If a man were to give all the substance of his house in exchange for love, he would despise it as nothing.

9 Chorus: Our sister is little and has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is called upon?

10 If she is a wall, let us build a rampart of silver upon it. If she is a door, let us join it together with boards of cedar.

11 Bride to Chorus: I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers, since, in his presence, I have become like one who has discovered peace.

12 The peaceful one had a vineyard, in that which held the peoples. He handed it on to the caretakers; a man brought, in exchange for its fruit, a thousand pieces of silver.

13 Groom: My vineyard is before me. The thousand is for your peacefulness, and two hundred is for those who care for its fruit.

14 Bride to Groom: Your friends are attentive to those who have been dwelling in the gardens. Cause me to heed your voice.

15 Flee away, my beloved, and become like the doe and the young stag upon the mountains of aromatic plants.

Wisdom

Wisdom 1

1 Love justice, you who judge the land. Think of the Lord in goodness and seek him in simplicity of heart.

2 For he is found by those who do not test him, yet he reveals himself to those who have faith in him.

3 For perverse thoughts separate from God. But his virtue, when it is tested, corrects the foolish.

4 For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subdued by sin.

5 For the holy spirit of instruction will flee from falsehood, and he will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and he will not be reached when iniquity overcomes.

6 For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not release the evil speaker from his talk, because God is a witness of his temperament, and a true examiner of his heart, and an auditor of his words.

7 For the spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and he who contains all things, retains knowledge of every voice.

8 Therefore, he who speaks unjust things cannot escape notice, nor will the chastising judgment pass him by.

9 For inquiry will be made into the thoughts of the impious, his conversation also will reach the hearing of God, to the chastising of his iniquities.

10 For the zealous ear hears all things, and the disturbance of complaining will not be hidden.

11 Therefore, keep yourselves from complaining, which benefits nothing, and refrain your tongue from slander, because secret conversation will not pass into nothingness, and the mouth that deceives kills the soul.

12 Do not court death by the error of your life, nor procure your destruction by the works of your hands,

13 because God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the loss of the living.

14 For he created all things that they might exist, and he made the nations of the world curable, and there is no medicine of extermination in them, nor a kingdom of hell upon the earth.

15 For justice is perpetual and immortal.

16 But the impious, with hands and words, have called death to them, and, esteeming it a friend, they have fallen away and have made a covenant with death, because they deserved to take part in it.

Wisdom

Wisdom 2

1 For they have said, reasoning with themselves incorrectly: “Our lifetime is brief and tedious, and there is no relief within the limits of man, and no one is acknowledged to have returned from the dead.

2 For we are born from nothing, and after this we will be as if we had not been, because the breath in our nostrils is like smoke, and conversation sends out sparks from the stirring of our heart;

3 therefore, when it is extinguished, our body will be ashes, and our spirit will be diffused like a soft breeze, and our life will pass away like the wisp of a cloud, just as a mist is dissolved when it is driven away by the rays of the sun and overpowered by its heat.

4 And in time our name will surrender to oblivion, and no one will have remembrance of our works.

5 For our time is like the passing of a shadow, and nothing can reverse our end, for it is signed and sealed, and cannot be returned.

6 Therefore, hurry, let us enjoy the good things of the present time, and let us quickly use up passing things, just as in youth.

7 Let us indulge ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let no flower of youth pass us by.

8 Let us surround ourselves with rosebuds before they wither; let no meadow be left untouched by our indulgence.

9 Let no one among us be exempt from our indulgence. Let us leave behind tokens of enjoyment everywhere, for this is our portion, and this is fate.

10 Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor respect the aged grey hairs of elders.

11 But let our strength be the law of justice, for what is weak is found to be useless.

12 Therefore, let us encircle the just, because he is useless to us, and he is against our works, and he reproaches us with our legal offenses, and makes known to us the sins of our way of life.

13 He promises that he has the knowledge of God and he calls himself the son of God.

14 He was made among us to expose our very thoughts.

15 He is grievous for us even to behold, for his life is unlike other men’s lives, and immutable are his ways.

16 It is as if we are considered by him to be insignificant, and he abstains from our ways as from filth; he prefers the newly justified, and he glories that he has God for his father.

17 Let us see, then, if his words are true, and let us test what will happen to him, and then we will know what his end will be.

18 For if he is the true son of God, he will receive him and deliver him from the hands of his adversaries.

19 Let us examine him with insult and torture, that we may know his reverence and try his patience.

20 Let us condemn him to a most shameful death, for, according to his own words, God will care for him.”

21 These things they thought, and they were mistaken, for their own malice blinded them.

22 And they were ignorant of the mysteries of God; they neither hoped for the reward of justice, nor judged the value of holy souls.

23 For God created man to be immortal, and he made him in the image of his own likeness.

24 But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,

25 yet they imitate him, who are from his side.

Wisdom

Wisdom 3

1 But the souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment of death will touch them.

2 In the eyes of the foolish, they seemed to die, and their departure was considered an affliction,

3 and their going away from us, a banishment. Yet they are in peace.

4 And though, in the sight of men, they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality.

5 Troubled in few things, in many things they will be well compensated, because God has tested them and found them worthy of himself.

6 Like gold in the furnace, he has proved them, and as a holocaust victim, he has received them, and in the time of their visitation

7 they will shine, and they will dash about like sparks among stubble.

8 They will judge the nations and they will rule over the people, and their Lord will reign forever.

9 Those who trust in him, will understand the truth, and those who are faithful in love will rest in him, because grace and peace is for his elect.

10 But the impious will be chastised according to their thoughts, for they have neglected the just and have retreated from the Lord.

11 For whoever abandons wisdom and instruction is unhappy, and their hope is empty, and their labors without fruit, and their works useless.

12 Their wives are foolish and their sons are wicked; the things that serve them are accursed.

13 Therefore, fertile is the barren and undefiled, who has not known transgressions in bed; she will bear fruit by caring for holy souls.

14 And fertile is the celibate, who has not wrought iniquity with his hands, nor thought wickedness against God; for to him will be given a special gift of faith and a very welcome place in the temple of the Lord.

15 For the fruit of good labors is glorious and the root of wisdom shall never perish.

16 But the sons of adulterers will not reach completion, and the offspring of a sinful bed will be banished.

17 And if they live long, they will be counted as nothing, and their last years of old-age will be without honor.

18 And if they die quickly, they will have no hope, nor words of comfort on the day of reckoning.

19 For the iniquities of the people have a dreadful result.

Wisdom

Wisdom 4

1 O how beautiful is the chaste fruit of purity! For its remembrance is immortal, because it is observed both with God and with men.

2 When it is present, they imitate it, and they desire it when it has withdrawn itself, and it triumphs crowned forever, winning the reward of undefiled conflicts.

3 But the great number of the many different kinds of the impious will not be to their advantage, and spurious seedlings will not be given deep roots, nor will they establish any firm foundation.

4 And if they spring forth with branches for a time, yet, being set infirmly, they will be shaken by the wind, and, by the superabundance of the winds, they will be eradicated.

5 For the incomplete branches will be broken, and their fruits will be useless, and bitter to eat, and fit for nothing.

6 For all the sons born from iniquity are witnesses of wickedness against their parents at their interrogation.

7 But the just, if death seizes him beforehand, will be refreshed.

8 For old age is made venerable, neither by lasting long, nor by counting the number of years; yet understanding is the gray hair of wisdom for men,

9 and an immaculate life is a generation of sages.

10 Pleasing to God, having been made beloved, and living among sinners, he was transformed.

11 He was quickly taken away, for malice could not alter his understanding, nor could deceit beguile his soul.

12 For fascination with entertainment obscures good things, and the unfaithfulness of desire subverts the mind without malice.

13 Completed in a short time, he fulfilled many times.

14 Truly his soul was pleasing to God. Because of this, he hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquities, but the people see this and do not understand, nor do they place such things in their hearts:

15 that the grace and mercy of God is with his holy ones, and he watches over his elect.

16 But the just dead will condemn the impious living, and youth hastily completed results in a long unjust life.

17 For they will see the end of the wise, and will neither understand, nor imagine, that he is of God, and that therefore the Lord has safeguarded him.

18 For they will see and despise him, but the Lord will ridicule them.

19 And after this, they will fall without honor and with contempt among the dead forever. Seeing that they are puffed up and speechless, he will shatter them and will shake them from the foundations all the way to the top, to their utter desolation, and they will grieve and their remembrance will perish.

20 They will hurry with fear at the understanding of their sins, and their iniquities will bear witness against them.

Wisdom

Wisdom 5

1 Then the just will stand with great steadfastness against those who have oppressed them and have taken away their labors.

2 Seeing this, they will be troubled with terrible fear, and they will be amazed at the suddenness of unexpected salvation.

3 Driven toward regret, and through the anguish of their groaning spirit, they will say within themselves: “These are the ones whom we held for some time in derision and in mocking reproach.

4 We foolish considered their life to be madness, and their end to be without honor.

5 How is it that they are counted among the sons of God, and their place is among the holy?

6 Therefore, we have strayed from the way of truth, and the light of justice has not shined on us, and the sun of understanding has not risen on us.

7 We exhausted ourselves in the way of iniquity and perdition, and have walked a difficult way, while ignoring the way of the Lord.

8 How has arrogance benefited us? Or what has exalting in riches brought us?

9 All those things have passed away like a shadow, and like a messenger traveling quickly by;

10 and like a ship passing over the waves of water, when it has gone by, its trace cannot be found, nor can the pathway of its keel in the waves;

11 or, like a bird flying through the air, there is no evidence of her journey to be found, but there is hardly a sound as the beating of her wings lifts up the air and, by the force of her journey, divides the air she has flown across, which was disturbed by her wings, and afterwards there is no sign of her journey to be found;

12 or, like an arrow shot at a selected mark, the air continues to be divided and to be brought together again, so that its passing is unknown.

13 And in like manner we, having been born, continuously cease to exist, and indeed, we depart with no sign of virtue to show, but we are consumed in our malice.”

14 Such things those who sinned said in hell.

15 For the hope of the impious is like feathers, which are blown away by the wind, and like a thin foam, which is dispersed by a storm, and like smoke, which is scattered by the wind, and like the memory of a guest who passes by one day.

16 But the just will live forever, and their reward is with the Lord, and the thought of them is with the Most High.

17 Therefore, they will receive a beautiful kingdom and a crown of splendor from the hand of the Lord, for with his right hand he will cover them, and with his holy arm he will defend them.

18 And his zeal will take up arms, and he will equip his servants for retribution on their enemies.

19 He will put on justice as a breastplate, and he will grasp sure judgment as a helmet.

20 He will select fairness as an invincible shield.

21 Yet he will sharpen his severe wrath into a spear, and he will fight with those of the world against the irrational.

22 Shafts of lightning will hurl forth accurately, and, as if from a well-curved bow of clouds, they will be expelled and will fly to the determined mark.

23 And hail will be cast like stones full of anger, and the water of the sea will rise up against them, and the rivers will charge forth harshly.

24 The spirit of virtue will stand firm against them and like a whirlwind will divide them, and he will lead all the world of iniquity into a wasteland, and malice will overthrow the seats of power.

Wisdom

Wisdom 6

1 Wisdom is better than power, and a prudent man is better than a powerful one.

2 Therefore, hear, O kings, and understand; learn, you judges of the ends of the earth.

3 Listen closely, you who hold the attention of the crowds, and who please yourselves by disturbing the nations.

4 For power has been given to you from the Lord and strength from the Most High, who will examine your works and scrutinize your thoughts.

5 For, when you were ministers of his kingdom, you did not judge correctly, nor keep the law of justice, nor walk according to the will of God.

6 Horribly and quickly he will appear to you, because he will make a severe judgment for those who are in charge.

7 For, to the little, great mercy is granted, but the powerful will endure powerful torment.

8 For the Lord will not exempt anyone’s character, nor will he stand in awe of anyone’s greatness, because he himself made the little and the great, and he is equally concerned for everyone.

9 But a powerful torture pursues the powerful.

10 Therefore, O kings, these, my words, are for you, so that you may learn wisdom and not perish.

11 For those who have justly preserved justice will be justified, and those who have learned these things will find what to answer.

12 Therefore, desire my words, love them, and you will have instruction.

13 Wisdom is pure and never fades away, and is easily seen by those who love her and found by those who seek her.

14 She anticipates those who desire her, so that she first reveals herself to them.

15 Whoever awakens early to seek her, will not labor, for he will find her sitting at his door.

16 Therefore, by thinking about her, understanding is perfected, and whoever remains watchful for her, will quickly be secure.

17 For she goes about seeking such as are worthy of her, and she reveals herself to them cheerfully in the ways, and meets them with all foresight.

18 For the very true beginning of her is the desire for instruction.

19 Therefore, the zeal for instruction is love, and love is the keeping of her laws, and the keeping of her laws is the perfection of incorruptibility,

20 while incorruptibility makes us near to God.

21 And so, the desire for wisdom leads to an everlasting kingdom.

22 If, therefore, your delight is in thrones and scepters, O kings of the people, love wisdom, so that you may reign forever;

23 love the light of wisdom, all you who lead the peoples.

24 But what wisdom is, and how she was made, I will report, and I will not hide the mysteries of God from you, but I will investigate her from the beginning of her birth, and I will place the knowledge of her in the light, and will not pass over the truth.

25 Neither will I hold to the path that dwindles away with envy, because such a man will not partake in wisdom.

26 For the proliferation of the wise is sanity for the world, and a wise king is the mainstay of the people.

27 Therefore, receive instruction by my words, and it will benefit you.