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Springtime Rhapsody

⁸ The voice of my beloved!
   Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
   bounding over the hills.
⁹ My beloved is like a gazelle
   or a young stag.
Look, there he stands
   behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
   looking through the lattice.
¹⁰ My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away;
¹¹ for now the winter is past,
   the rain is over and gone.
¹² The flowers appear on the earth;
   the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
   is heard in our land.
¹³ The fig tree puts forth its figs,
   and the vines are in blossom;
   they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away.

Jacob Meets Rachel

29Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the people of the east. ²As he looked, he saw a well in the field and three flocks of sheep lying there beside it; for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was large, ³and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well, and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.

4 Jacob said to them, ‘My brothers, where do you come from?’ They said, ‘We are from Haran.’ ⁵He said to them, ‘Do you know Laban son of Nahor?’ They said, ‘We do.’ ⁶He said to them, ‘Is it well with him?’ ‘Yes,’ they replied, ‘and here is his daughter Rachel, coming with the sheep.’ ⁷He said, ‘Look, it is still broad daylight; it is not time for the animals to be gathered together. Water the sheep, and go, pasture them.’ ⁸But they said, ‘We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together, and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.’

9 While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep; for she kept them. ¹⁰Now when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, and the sheep of his mother’s brother Laban, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of his mother’s brother Laban. ¹¹Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and wept aloud. ¹²And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman, and that he was Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father.

13 When Laban heard the news about his sister’s son Jacob, he ran to meet him; he embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Jacob^* told Laban all these things, ¹⁴and Laban said to him, ‘Surely you are my bone and my flesh!’ And he stayed with him for a month.

3Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? ²Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews^* were entrusted with the oracles of God. ³What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? ⁴By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written,
‘So that you may be justified in your words,
   and prevail in your judging.’^*
5But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) ⁶By no means! For then how could God judge the world? ⁷But if through my falsehood God’s truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? ⁸And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), ‘Let us do evil so that good may come’? Their condemnation is deserved!