Talk Series - Sex in the City

Song of Solomon 7–8:9 (Listen)

  7:1 How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
    O noble daughter!
  Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
    the work of a master hand.
2   Your navel is a rounded bowl
    that never lacks mixed wine.
  Your belly is a heap of wheat,
    encircled with lilies.
3   Your two breasts are like two fawns,
    twins of a gazelle.
4   Your neck is like an ivory tower.
  Your eyes are pools in Heshbon,
    by the gate of Bath-rabbim.
  Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon,
    which looks toward Damascus.
5   Your head crowns you like Carmel,
    and your flowing locks are like purple;
    a king is held captive in the tresses.
6   How beautiful and pleasant you are,
    O loved one, with all your delights!¹
7   Your stature is like a palm tree,
    and your breasts are like its clusters.
8   I say I will climb the palm tree
    and lay hold of its fruit.
  Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine,
    and the scent of your breath like apples,
9   and your mouth² like the best wine.

She

The Bride Gives Her Love

11   Come, my beloved,
    let us go out into the fields
    and lodge in the villages;⁴
12   let us go out early to the vineyards
    and see whether the vines have budded,
  whether the grape blossoms have opened
    and the pomegranates are in bloom.
  There I will give you my love.
13   The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
    and beside our doors are all choice fruits,
  new as well as old,
    which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.

Longing for Her Beloved

8:1   Oh that you were like a brother to me
    who nursed at my mother's breasts!
  If I found you outside, I would kiss you,
    and none would despise me.
2   I would lead you and bring you
    into the house of my mother—
    she who used to teach me.
  I would give you spiced wine to drink,
    the juice of my pomegranate.
3   His left hand is under my head,
    and his right hand embraces me!
4   I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
    that you not stir up or awaken love
    until it pleases.
5   Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
    leaning on her beloved?
  Under the apple tree I awakened you.
  There your mother was in labor with you;
    there she who bore you was in labor.
6   Set me as a seal upon your heart,
    as a seal upon your arm,
  for love is strong as death,
    jealousy⁵ is fierce as the grave.⁶
  Its flashes are flashes of fire,
    the very flame of the LORD.
7   Many waters cannot quench love,
    neither can floods drown it.
  If a man offered for love
    all the wealth of his house,
    he⁷ would be utterly despised.

Final Advice

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(ESV)