Amor de casal

The Nature of Genuine Romantic Love

6 Set me as a seal upon your heart,

as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death;

passion is fierce as Sheol;

its flashes are flashes of fire;

it is a blazing flame.

7 Many waters cannot quench love;

rivers cannot sweep it away.*

If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love,*

he would be utterly scorned.*

9 You have stolen (my) heart, my sister bride!

You have stolen my heart with one glance from your eyes,

with one ornament from your necklaces.

Maiden’s Soliloquy

2 May* you kiss me* passionately with your lips,*

for your love is better than wine.*

3 As fragrance, your perfumes* are delightful;*

your name is poured out perfume;*

therefore young women love you.

Mutual Admiration

15 Look! You are beautiful, my beloved.

Look! You are beautiful;

your eyes are doves.

16 Look! You are beautiful, my beloved,

truly pleasant.

Truly our couch is verdant;*

18 Then* Yahweh God said, "it is not good that the man* is alone. I will make for him a helper as his counterpart."*

22 And Yahweh God fashioned the rib which he had taken from the man* into a woman and brought her to the man.*23 And the man* said,

"She is now* bone from my bones

and flesh from my flesh;

she* shall be called ‘Woman,’

for she was taken* from man."

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cling to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh.

22 He who finds a wife* finds good,

and he will obtain favor from Yahweh.

18 May your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife* of your youth.

19 She is a deer of love and a doe of grace;

may her breasts satisfy you always;*

by her love may you be intoxicated continually.

20 Why should you be intoxicated, my child, by a strange woman,

and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate."

4 Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, it does not boast, it does not become conceited, 5 it does not behave dishonorably, it is not selfish*, it does not become angry, it does not keep a record of wrongs, 6 it does not rejoice at unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

28 Thus also husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. The one who loves his own wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as also Christ does the church,

33 Only you also, each one of you, must thus love his own wife as himself, and the wife must respect* her husband.

14 And to all these things add love, which is the bond of perfection.

Friends and Family Can Help One Another in Life

9 Two are better than the one, for they enjoy a better reward for their toil. 10 For if one falls, his companion may help him up. But pity the one who falls and there is no one* to help him up. 11 Also if two lie together, they can keep each other warm.* But how can one person be warm? 12 Although an assailant may overpower one person, two may withstand him.* A threefold cord is not easily broken!*

15 Did not one God make them?* But a remnant of the spirit is his.* And what does the one God desire? An offspring of God.* You must be attentive to* your spirit, and you must not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.

5 "When* a man takes a new wife he shall not go out with the army, and he shall not be obligated with anything;* he shall be free from obligation, to stay at home* for one year, and he shall bring joy to his wife that he took.