2 Corinthians 9.12-10.7 (Epistle)

12For this service of giving that you perform not only makes up for lack among the saints, but abounds also through much giving of thanks to God, 13seeing that through the proof given by this service, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the Good News of Christ and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all, 14while they themselves also, with supplication on your behalf, yearn for you by reason of the exceeding grace of God in you. 15Now thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!

1Now I Paul, myself, entreat you by the humility and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you. 2Yes, I beg you that I may not, when present, show courage with the confidence with which I intend to be bold against some, who consider us to be walking according to the flesh. 3For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; 4for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, 5throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6and being in readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience is made full.

7Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s.

Mark 3.19-27 (Gospel)

19and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Then he came into a house. 20The multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 21When his friends heard it, they went out to seize him; for they said, “He is insane.” 22The scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul,” and, “By the prince of the demons he casts out the demons.”

23He summoned them and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26If Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he can’t stand, but has an end. 27But no one can enter into the house of the strong man to plunder unless he first binds the strong man; then he will plunder his house.

Miracle of Archangel Michael at Colossae

In Colossae in Phrygia there were a church and a holy spring dedicated to the Archangel Michael. Malicious pagans diverted the course of two rivers so that they would inundate the church. But the Archangel appeared, bringing with him an earthquake that shook the whole area and opened a fissure into which the waters plunged, sparing the church. The place was thereafter called “Chonae” Greek for “funnels” instead of Colossae.

Holy Prophet Zacharias and Righteous Elizabeth (1st c.), parents of St John the Forerunner.

The story of the holy parents of the Forerunner is told in the first chapters of Luke’s Gospel. Several of the Fathers say that Zacharias is the one who, the Lord said, was slain between the temple and the altar (Matthew 23:35); because he continued to call the Mary the Mother of God a virgin even after she bore Christ; and because his son had escaped the slaughter of the innocents ordered by Herod. St Elizabeth had hidden him in a cave in the desert; he remained in the wilderness from that time until he began to preach by the Jordan.