Mark 10:6–9

Public domain, so these words can be printed in a ceremony script or an order of service.

Mark 10 gives the same exchange as Matthew 19: Pharisees ask Jesus whether it is lawful for a man to put away his wife, and this is part of his reply.

From the beginning of creation, Jesus says, God made them male and female. For this reason a man leaves his father and mother, holds fast to his wife, and the two become one flesh, no longer two. What God has joined, let no one separate. Mark’s version is the tighter of the two, without the back-and-forth that Matthew includes, which makes it one of the shortest readings in the library.

Mark's shorter version of the same passage. Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: one flesh · joined together · gospel reading · very short.

A brief church wedding, an elopement with a Christian officiant, or a ceremony that already has a long poem and needs one short scripture. Like Matthew’s version, its wording assumes a man and a woman.

Right before the pronouncement, or as the Gospel reading in a short service. Because it takes about thirty seconds, it is often read by the officiant without a separate reader walking up.

The text on this page is 57 words. At a ceremony pace of about 130 words a minute, which is slower than conversation, that comes to about 25 seconds of reading.

• Four short sentences. Read each one completely before starting the next, with a clear stop at every full point.
• If a guest reads it, have them wait at the lectern for a breath after the last line. A twenty-second reading needs a moment of stillness to register.
• Agree with the officiant whether they will repeat “let not man put asunder” in the pronouncement, so the two do not collide.

All wedding ceremony readings →