Wedding Mass First Reading Options
Below are a selected list of first readings (Old Testament), however feel free to use one supplied by your church (different reading choices can certainly be printed in the booklet ).
#1. A Reading from the book of Tobit 8,5-7
“Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors;
blessed be your name forever and ever!
Let the heavens and all your creation bless you forever.
You made Adam, and you made his wife Eve
to help and support one another;
and from these two the human race has come.
You said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone;
let us make him another like himself.
Now…with fidelity I take this kinswoman as my wife.
Send down your mercy on me and on her,
and grant that we may grow old together.”
They said together, “Amen, amen!”
The Word of the Lord
#2. A Reading from the Song of Songs 2,8-10, 14, 16; 8, 6-7
My lover speaks; he says to me,
“Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one and come!
0 my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff, .
Let me see you, let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet, and you are lovely.”
My lover belongs to me and I to him.
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.
The Word of the Lord
#3. A reading from the Book of Genesis 1, 26-28, 31
Then God said: Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: tame animals, crawling things, and every kind of wild animal. And so it happened: God made every kind of wild animal, every kind of tame animal, and every kind of thing that crawls on the ground. God saw that it was good. Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth. God created mankind in his image
in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them.
God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth. God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.
The Word of the Lord
#4. A Reading from the Book of 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 God formed out of the
ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and
God 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 God cast a deep sleep on the man and while he was asleep,
God took out one of his ribs and closed up its
place with flesh. God then built up into a woman the rib that
God had taken from the man. When God 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 two of them become one body.
The Word of the Lord
#5. A reading from the Book of Sirach 26,1-4, 13-16
Happy the husband of a good wife;
twice-lengthened are his days.
A worthy wife brings joy to her husband,
peaceful and full is his life.
A good wife is a generous gift
bestowed upon him who fears God;
Be he rich or poor, his heart is content,
and a smile is ever on his face.
A gracious wife delights her husband,
her thoughtfulness puts flesh on his bones;
A gift from God is her governed speech,
and her firm virtue is of surpassing worth.
Choicest of blessings is a modest wife,
priceless her chaste person.
Like the sun rising in God’s heaven,
the beauty of a virtuous wife
is the radiance of her home.
The word of the Lord.
#6. A reading from the book of Proverbs 31, 10-12,20; 30-31
When one finds a worthy wife,
her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband, entrusting his heart to her,
has an unfailing prize.
She brings him good, and not evil,
all the days of her life.
She reaches out her hands to the poor,
and extends her arms to the needy.
Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting;
the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a reward of her labors,
and let her works praise her at the city gates.
The Word of the Lord
#7. A reading from the book of Jeremiah 31, 31-32,33-34
The days are coming, says the lord, when I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will
not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I
took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of
Egypt.
But this is the covenant which I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will place my
law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their
God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have
need to teach their friends and relatives how to know God. All,
from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord.
The Word of the Lord
#8. A reading from the book of Micah 6; 6, 8
With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow before God most high?
You have been told, 0 one, what is good,
and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do right and to love goodness,
and to walk humbly with your God.
The Word of the Lord
#9 A reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah 61; 1-2, 10-11
The spirit of God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
God has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly,
to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
To announce a year of favor from the Lord
and a day of vindication by our God.
I rejoice heartily in the Lord,
in my God is the joy of my soul;
For God 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 God make justice and praise
spring up before all the nations.
The Word of the Lord