First Reading: Genesis 2:18-24

¹⁸ Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
¹⁹ So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
²⁰ The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him.
²¹ So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh;
²² and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
²³ Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
²⁴ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.