romance

¹⁸Let your spring be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth: ¹⁹a beloved doe and most pleasing fawn. Let her breasts inebriate you at all times. Be delighted continually by her love.

¹⁸The Lord God also said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. Let us make a helper for him similar to himself.”

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

¹If I were to speak in the language of men, or of Angels, yet not have charity, I would be like a clanging bell or a crashing cymbal. ²And if I have prophecy, and learn every mystery, and obtain all knowledge, and possess all faith, so that I could move mountains, yet not have charity, then I am nothing. ³And if I distribute all my goods in order to feed the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned, yet not have charity, it offers me nothing. ⁴Charity is patient, is kind. Charity does not envy, does not act wrongly, is not inflated. ⁵Charity is not ambitious, does not seek for itself, is not provoked to anger, devises no evil. ⁶Charity does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices in truth.

⁷Similarly, you husbands should live with them in accord with knowledge, bestowing honor on the female as the weaker vessel and as co-heirs of the life of grace, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

²⁴For this reason, a man shall leave behind his father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife; and the two shall be as one flesh.

¹⁰Who shall find a strong woman? Far away, and from the furthest parts, is her price.

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

⁸But, before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves. For love covers a multitude of sins.

⁴Charity is patient, is kind. Charity does not envy, does not act wrongly, is not inflated. ⁵Charity is not ambitious, does not seek for itself, is not provoked to anger, devises no evil. ⁶Charity does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices in truth. ⁷Charity suffers all, believes all, hopes all, endures all. ⁸Charity is never torn away, even if prophecies pass away, or languages cease, or knowledge is destroyed.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and handed himself over for her,

¹⁴Let all that is yours be immersed in charity.

²⁰Therefore, Jacob served for seven years for Rachel. And these seemed like only a few days, because of the greatness of love.

²Groom: Like a lily among the thorns, so is my loved one among the daughters.

¹⁴You shall not commit adultery.

²¹Do not allow evil to prevail, instead prevail over evil by means of goodness.