12But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake.
13It will turn out as a testimony for you.
14Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,
15for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.
16You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.
17You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.
18And not a hair of your head will perish.
19“By your endurance you will win your lives.
Isaiah 29.13-23
(6th Hour)
13And the Lord has said, This people draw near to me with their mouth, and they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me: but in vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men.
14Therefore behold I will proceed to remove this people, and I will remove them: and I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will hide the understanding of the prudent.
15Woe to them that deepen their counsel, and not by the Lord. Woe to them that take secret counsel, and whose works are in darkness, and they say, Who has seen us? and who shall know us, or what we do?
16Shall you⌃ not be counted as clay of the potter? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, You did not form me? or the work to the maker, You have not made me wisely?
17Is it not yet a little while, and Libanus shall be changed as the mountains of Chermel, and Chermel shall be reckoned as a forest?
18And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and they that are in darkness, and they that are in mist: the eyes of the blind shall see,
19and the poor shall rejoice with joy because of the Lord, and they that had no hope among men shall be filled with joy.
20The lawless man has come to nothing, and the proud man has perished, and they that transgress mischievously have been utterly destroyed:
21and they that cause men to sin by a word: and men shall make all that reprove in the gates an offense, because they have unjustly turned aside the righteous.
22Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the house of Jacob, whom he set apart from Abraam, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall he now change countenance.
23But when their children shall have seen my works, they shall sanctify my name for my sake, and they sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.
Genesis 12.1-7 (Vespers)
1And the Lord said to Abram, Go forth out of your land and out of your kindred, and out of the house of your father, and come into the land which I will show you.
2And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed.
3And I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that curse you, and in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.
4And Abram went as the Lord spoke to him, and Lot departed with him, and Abram was seventy-five years old, when he went out of Charrhan.
5And Abram took Sara his wife, and Lot the son of his brother, and all their possessions, as many as they had got, and every soul which they had got in Charrhan, and they went forth to go into the land of Chanaan.
6And Abram traversed the land lengthwise as far as the place Sychem, to the high oak, and the Chananites then inhabited the land.
7And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, I will give this land to your seed. And Abram built an altar there to the Lord who appeared to him.
Proverbs 14.15-26 (Vespers)
15The simple believes every word: but the prudent man betakes himself to afterthought.
16A wise man fears, and departs from evil; but the fool trusts in himself, and joins himself with the transgressor.
17A passionate man acts inconsiderately; but a sensible man bears up under many things.
18Fools shall have mischief for their portion; but the prudent shall take fast hold of understanding.
19Evil men shall fall before the good; and the ungodly shall attend at the gates of the righteous.
20Friends will hate poor friends; but the friends of the rich are many.
21He that dishonors the needy sins: but he that has pity on the poor is most blessed.
22They that go astray devise evils: but the good devise mercy and truth. The framers of evil do not understand mercy and truth: but compassion and faithfulness are with the framers of good.
23With every one who is careful there is abundance: but the pleasure-taking and indolent shall be in lack.
24A prudent man is the crown of the wise: but the occupation of fools is evil.
25A faithful witness shall deliver a soul from evil: but a deceitful man kindles falsehoods.
26In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and he leaves his children a support.
Hebrews 12.1-10
(Epistle, Martyrs)
1Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
2looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls.
4You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.
5You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;
6for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline?
8But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children.
9Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
10For they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed good to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.
Matthew 20.1-16
(Gospel, Martyrs)
1“For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
2When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace.
4He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went their way.
5Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise.
6About the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’
7“They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ “He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’
8“When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’
9“When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius.
10When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius.
11When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household,
12saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’
13“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?
14Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you.
15Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’
16So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Commemorations
The Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebastia (Sebaste) (320)
They were all soldiers under one general, taken captive in the time of Licinius for their faith in Christ. They were stripped naked and cast onto a frozen lake at Sebastia in Pontus. They endured the entire night, encouraging each other to be patient. Some accounts say that their persecutors placed warm baths in their sight on the shore to entice them to renounce Christ. Finally one of their number, broken by his sufferings, apostatized and left the company. One of the guards, named Aglaius, saw in a vision thirty-nine wreaths descending from heaven onto the heads of the faithful sufferers, and was moved to declare himself a Christian. He was immediately sent to join the martyrs on the frozen lake, keeping the number of forty complete. In the morning all of them, almost dead, were cast into fire, and their remains thrown in the lake. On the third day the martyrs appeared to Peter, the local bishop, and told him to search for them in the lake. The bishop went to the lake on a dark night with his clergy, and one account says that the bones of the martyrs rose to the surface and burned there like a candle. The relics were gathered and given honorable burial.
This is the most common account. The Prologue gives a somewhat different version, in which the martyrs were made to stand, not on the frozen lake, but in the freezing waters.
St Caesarius (369)
He was the brother of St Gregory the Theologian and, like his brother, was a theological writer. In his works he gave an answer to the question: How long did Adam and Eve spend in Paradise before the Fall? Various writers had given estimates ranging from six hours to three days. Saint Caesarius wrote that our first parents’ time in Paradise was forty days; and that for this reason Christ fasted for forty days in the wilderness, being tempted by the Devil. “For, while the old Adam was not able to withstand the devil’s temptation in the abundance of Paradise, the New Adam withstood him as a true knight in hunger and thirst in the wilderness.” (Prologue)