WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts for a second term in office on Sunday in a brief, intimate private ceremony at the White House.

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God,” Obama said, in the Blue Room of the White House.

Roberts, who stumbled when swearing in Obama to open his first term in 2009, read each line of the oath out loud, before the president repeated it with his right armed raised and his left hand on a family Bible.

At the end of a ceremony lasting less than a minute, Obama hugged his wife, and children Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, before quipping: “I did it” to his youngest daughter.

Obama will take the oath of office for a second time at a time-honored outdoor public ceremony at the US Capitol on Monday.