Song of Solomon 8: love is strong as death
A love poem: many waters cannot quench love.
Bible reference: Song of Solomon 8:6-7
At a glance
- Length, read slowly
- Under a minute
- Where it goes
- Scripture reading · Christian wedding ceremony and Wedding ceremonyRead by: reader
- Second reading · Christian wedding ceremonyRead by: reader
Have the officiant read your choice first: they have the last word.
We don’t show modern translations here: they are protected by copyright. You can find them in your church’s Bible or on the publisher’s website. Further down this page is the text from the King James Version, which you may use freely.
Use in your programWhat this reading says
The Song of Solomon is a book of love poems, and this is its climax. The woman asks to be worn like a seal on her lover's heart and arm, a mark that cannot be rubbed off. Then she says what love is like. It is as strong as death, and as unyielding as the grave. It burns like a fire that nothing can put out. Floods cannot drown it. Anyone who tried to buy it would be laughed at. It is a declaration, not an instruction.
When it fits
Couples who find Paul's letters too sensible often land here. It is the one passage in the wedding list that sounds like love actually feels. It stands in the Catholic list of readings for marriage and reads just as well at a non-religious ceremony, because God is never named in these two verses. If you want a promise rather than a description, Ruth 1 has the same intensity in the form of a vow. For a poem that makes a similar claim about love outlasting time, see Sonnet 116. What this reading alone has is heat.
Reading it aloud
A friend with some nerve reads it best, someone who can say "strong as death" at a wedding without flinching. It is only two verses, so there is no need to hurry. Give the three big images (seal, fire, flood) room to breathe and drop your voice for the last line about money. The King James Version ends with "it would utterly be contemned", a word almost nobody knows; a modern translation says "scorned" or "despised". "Jealousy" in the older text means something closer to fierce devotion. Paste the translation you like into the wedding program and give it a credit line.
Text from the King James Version
Song of Solomon 8:6-7
This older translation is in the public domain in the United States, so you may print it in your program for free. A Catholic Mass reads from the lectionary, so for a Mass, paste the text your parish uses.
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
Goes well with
- Sonnet 116Shakespeare's version of love that bears it out to the edge of doom.
- Ruth 1: where you go, I will goRuth 1:16-17The same intensity, spoken as a promise instead of a description.
- 1 Corinthians 13: love is patient1 Corinthians 13:4-8aThe calm counterpart, if you want one reading that burns and one that steadies.
- How Do I Love Thee?Another love poem for a ceremony that leans on poetry more than scripture.
Scripture readings for a wedding
- Genesis 2: it is not good to be aloneGenesis 2:18-24The oldest wedding text in the Bible. Traditional couples pick it for 'one flesh' and the leaving of home.
- Ecclesiastes 4: two are better than oneEcclesiastes 4:9-12Two are better than one: plain wisdom about help, warmth and a cord of three strands. Reads well outside church too.