The Funeral of Reverend Clementa Pinckney. 
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me invite all of our pastors across this faith community to pray with us and with this family. God of our weary ears, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far on faith, thou who has by the night led us into the light, keep us forever in thy path we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God where we met thee. To the great, grand and supreme architect of the universe, to the one and only true God, the Eternal Father and his son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost, we pray. We gathered this day symbolic of being knee- bound and body bend before the throne of grace. It is this day that we bow our hearts beneath our knees and our knees in some lonesome valley. We have gathered for this home going celebration, like an empty pitcher to a full mountain. Oh, Lord, open up a window of heaven, pour out thy blessings upon this awaiting congregation. Neither far over the glory and hear our sincere prayers. Lord, have mercy upon our souls with the forgiveness of our sins, blessed our gathering on this day. Ride by this morning, mount up on your milky white horse and in your ride to save us from our sins and to create within us a clean heart. Oh Lord, bless our president, the president of the United States of America, president Barack and first lady. Pin his ears to the wisdom post, continue to make his words as sledgehammers of truth. Put his eyes to the telescope of eternity and let him look upon the paper walls of time, turpentine his imagination, put perpetual in his arm, fill him full of dynamite of power, anoint him all over with the all of salvation and let his tongue be less fire. Bless our bishop and supervisor Norris and all of the bishops of Zion and the visiting bishops. Bless our Congress, our Senate, our governor, our mayor, our elected officials and all clergy across the ecumenical community and their spouses. And this bereaved family and the entire Emanuel nine families. And now, oh Lord, when we have drunk or last cup of sorrow, when we have been called everything but a child of God and when we are done traveling up the rough side of the mountain, Jesus, stand by us. We started down the steep and slippery steps of death and when your world begins to rot beneath our feet, lower us to the dusty grave in peace to await for that morning, meet us, Jesus, that our souls would rest in peace. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. Amen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our Old Testament scripture comes from the 40th chapter of Isaiah, beginning at verse 18. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol? A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains. As a gift one chooses mulberry wood -- wood that will not rot -- then seeks out a skilled artisan to set up an image that will not topple. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God"? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. The word of God.</s>AUDIENCE: Amen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reading of the epistle will be lifted up from Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, the 15 chapter, begin reading in verse 50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed. In a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible. We shall be changed for this corrupt must put up this corruption and this mortal must put on mortality and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the same that is ridden death has swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your string? Oh grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of the sin of the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ? Therefore my beloved brethren, be moveable and always working in the lord knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. The word of God for the people of God.</s>UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Our gospel reading comes from the fourth gospel, the gospel according to John, the 3rd chapter, beginning with the 16th verse. For the God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life. For God did send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. And whoever believes in him is not be condemned, but whoever believes stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God as the one and only son. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world but men like darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil and everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that its deeds will be exposed. But whoever live by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through Jesus the Christ. Amen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen. And the people of God should say amen.</s>AUDIENCE: Amen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this time, it's our opportunity to present to this bereaved family and this entire gathering, the presiding prelate of the seventh Episcopal district of the African Methodist Episcopal church, the chief pastor, the episcopate, Reverend Richard Franklin Norris. Except for the family, we will ask, and the president, all others please rise and receive him.</s>REV. RICHARD FRANKLIN NORRIS, CHIEF PASTOR: Thank you. To all of the established protocol of this day, stretching across every segment of this nation and of our government, I rise on behalf of the seventh Episcopal African-American church to express my thanks and appreciation to each of you for your support, encouragement of the family during this time of sorrow and loss. We come not as those who have no hope but we come reassured that nothing separates us from the love of God. And, therefore, we press on to do those things which are acceptable in the sight of God. Now, even a presiding bishop has sense enough to know not to block the way when the president is waiting to speak. I ask you to give me just about 40 seconds to say to you how grateful we are to each of you for what you have done and for what you continue to do. Seeing that we are encompassed by a greater cloud of witnesses, I say to us, let us run on, run on and see what the end will be. For I am persuaded that God will bring everything into fruition and God will bless our going out and our coming in. I stand to say that the nine who lost their lives at bible study, I'm calling upon is the board of trustees of Allen University to raise a memorial on the campus of that institution in memory of the nine who lost their lives I am persuaded that coming generations who will study on the campus of Allen will be reminded of the importance of what happened during this period of time. I close by saying to you that we are convinced that South Carolina rose to its greatest height during the last week.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Giving all praise and honor to God.