Church ceremony readings:
I. Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
II. Ruth 1:16-17
1:16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
1:17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
III. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
4:9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.
4:10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.
4:11 Again, if two lie together, they are warm; but how can one be warm alone?
4:12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.