Matthew 19:4-6 (New English Bible)

Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one"?  So they are no longer two but one.  What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

Photo courtesy of Style Me Pretty.

Prayer from the Old Testament

Grant perfect joy to these loving companions,
as you did to the first man and woman
in the Garden of Eden.
Praised are you, O Lord,
who grants the joy of the (Bride) and (Groom)

Blessed is the Lord our God,
Ruler of the universe,
for giving us life,
for sustaining us,
and for enabling us to reach this day of joy.

This is the day the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord look kindly upon you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord bestow favor upon you
and give you peace.
Amen.

photo courtesy of Brian Freidman Photography

Psalm 1: The Book of Psalms, adapted by Stephen Mitchell

Blessed are the man and the woman
                  who have grown beyond themselves
                  and have seen through their separations.
They delight in the way things are
                  and keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
                  which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not fall or wither.
                  Everything they do will succeed.

Colossians 3:12-17

Because you are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Bear with one another; forgive whatever grievances you have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.  Over all these virtues put on love, which binds the rest together and makes them perfect.  Christ’s peace must reign in your hearts, since as members of the one body you have been called to that peace.  Dedicated yourselves to thankfulness.  Let the word of Christ, rich as it is, dwell in you.  In wisdom made perfect, instruct and admonish one another.  Sing gratefully to God from your hearts in psalms, hymns, and inspired songs.  Whatever you do, whether in speech or in action, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus.  Give thanks to God the Father through him.

Ephesians 4:1-4, 5:1-2

I plead with you then, as a prisoner for the Lord, to live a life worthy of the calling you have received, with perfect humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another lovingly.  Make every effort to preserve the unity which has the Spirit as its origin and peace as its blinding force.  There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call…Be imitators of God as his dear children.  Follow the way of love, even as Christ loved you.  He gave himself for us as an offering to God, a gift of pleasing fragrance.

Ephesians 3:14-19

That is why I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name; and I pray that he will bestow on gifts in keeping with the riches of his glory.  May he strengthen you inwardly through the working of his Spirit.  May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, and may charity be the root and foundation of your life.  Thus you will be able to grasp fully and with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, and experiences this love which surpasses all knowledge so that you may attain to the fullness of God himself.

I Corinthians 13:1-8; 13

If I speak with human tongues and angelic as well, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and, with full knowledge, comprehend all mysteries, if I have faith great enough to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give everything I have to feed the poor and hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 


Love is patient; love is kind.  Love is not jealous, it does not put on airs, it is not snobbish.  Love is never rude, it is not self seeking; it is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries.  Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but rejoices with the truth.  There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure. Love never fails.  Prophecies will cease, tongues will be silent, knowledge will pass away….There are in the end three things that last:  faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

Romans 12:9-18

Your love must be sincere.  Detest what is evil, cling to what is good.  Love one another with the affection of brothers.  Anticipate each other in showing respect.  Do not grow slack but be fervent in spirit; he whom you serve is the Lord.  Rejoice in hope, be patient under trial, persevere in prayer.  Look on the needs of the saints as your own; be generous in offering hospitality.  Bless your persecutors; bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.  Have the same attitude toward all.  Put away ambitious thoughts and associate with those who are lowly.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never repay injury with injury.  See that your conduct is honorable in the eyes of all.  If possible, live peaceably with everyone.

John 15:12-13, 16-17

This is my commandment:
Love one another
As I have loved you.
There is no greater love than this:
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
It was not you who chose me,
it was I who chose you
to go forth and bear fruit.
Your fruit must endure,

so that all you ask the Father in my name
he will give you.
The command I give you is this,
that you love one another.

1 John 4:7-12; 16; 18-19

Beloved,

let us love one another

because love is of God;

everyone who loves is begotten of God

and has knowledge of God.

The man without love has known nothing of God,

for God is love.

God’s love was revealed in our midst in this way:

he sent his only Son to the world

that we might have life through him.

Love, then, consists in this:

not that we have loved God,
but that he has loved us

and has sent his Son as an offering for our sins.

Beloved,
if God has loved us so,
we must have the same love for one another.

No one has ever seen God.

Yet if we love one another

God dwells in us,
and his love is brought to perfection in us.

We have come to know and to believe

in the love God has for us.
God is love,
and he who abides in love

abides in God,

and God in him.

Love has no room for fear;

rather, perfect love casts out of fear.

And since fear has to do with punishment,
love is not yet perfect in one who is afraid.
We for our part, love

because he first loved us.

Hosea 2:14-16; 19-20

So I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
From there I will give her the vineyards she had,
and the valley of Achor as a door of hope.
She shall respond there are in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.
On that day, says the Lord,
She shall call me “My husband.”

I will espouse you to me forever;
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the Lord.

Isaiah 61:10-62:5

I rejoice heartily in the Lord,

in my God is the joy of my soul;
For he has clothed me with a robe of salvation,
and wrapped me in a mantle of justice,
Like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem,
like a bride bedecked with her jewels.
As the earth brings forth its plants,
and a garden makes its growth spring up,
So will the Lord God make justice and praise
spring up before all the nations.

For Zion’s sake I will not be silent,
for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet,
Until her vindication shines forth like the dawn
and her victory like a burning torch.
Nations shall behold your vindication,
and all kings your glory;
You shall be called by a new name
pronounced by the mouth of the Lord.
You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord,
a royal diadem held by your God.
No more shall men called you “Forsaken,”
or your land “Desolate,”
But you shall be called “My Delight,”
and your land “Espoused.”
For the Lord delights in you,
and makes your land his spouse.
As a young man marries a virgin,
your Builder shall marry you;
And as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride
so shall your God rejoice in you.

Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) 8:6-7

Set me as a seal on your heart,

      as a seal on your arm;

For stern as death is love,

      relentless as the nether world is devotion;
      its flames are a blazing fire.

Deep waters cannot quench love,

      nor floods sweep it away.

Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love,

      he would be roundly mocked.

Ecclasiastes 9:7-9

Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, because it is not that God favors your works. At all times let your garments be white, and spare not the perfume for your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of the fleeting life that is granted you under the sun. Thi is your lot in life, for the toil of your labors under the sun.

Ecclasiastes 4:9-12

Two are better than one: they get a good wage for their labor.
If the one falls, the other will lift up his companion.
Woe to the solitary man!
For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up.
So also, if two sleep together, they keep each other warm.
How can one alone keep warm?
Where a lone man may be overcome, two together can resist.
A three-ply cord is not easily broken.

Ruth 1:16-17

Ruth said, “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! for wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, your God my God. Wherever you die I will die, and there be buried. May the Lord do so and so to me, and more besides if aught but death separates me from you!”

Genesis 2:18-24

The Lord God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and arious birds of the air and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up the place with flesh. The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, the man said:

“This one, at last, is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

This one shall be called ‘woman’,

for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.