12And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have finished doing all things on Mount Sion and Jerusalem, that I will visit upon the proud heart, even upon the ruler of the Assyrians, and upon the boastful haughtiness of his eyes.
13For he said, I will act in strength, and in the wisdom of my understanding I will remove the boundaries of nations, and will spoil their strength.
14And I will shake the inhabited cities: and I will take with my hand all the world as a nest: and I will even take them as eggs that have been left; and there is none that shall escape me, or contradict me.
15Shall the axe glorify itself without him that hews with it? or shall the saw lift up itself without him that uses it, as if one should lift a rod or staff? but it shall not be so;
16but the Lord of hosts shall send dishonor upon your honor, and burning fire shall be kindled upon your glory.
17And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and he shall sanctify him with burning fire, and it shall devour the wood as grass.
18In that day the mountains shall be consumed, and the hills, and the forests, and fire shall devour both soul and body: and he that flees shall be as one fleeing from burning flame.
19And they that are left of them shall be a small number, and a child shall write them.
20And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel shall no more join themselves with, and the saved of Jacob shall no more trust in, them that injured them; but they shall trust in the Holy God of Israel, in truth.
Genesis 7.6-9 (Vespers)
6And Noe was six hundred years old when the flood of water was upon the earth.
7And then went in Noe and his sons and his wife, and his sons' wives with him into the ark, because of the water of the flood.
8And of clean flying creatures and of unclean flying creatures, and of clean cattle and of unclean cattle, and of all things that creep upon the earth,
9pairs went in to Noe into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noe.
Proverbs 9.12-18 (LXX) (Vespers)
12Son, if you be wise for yourself, you shall also be wise for your neighbors; and if you should prove wicked, you alone will bear the evil. He that stays himself upon falsehoods, attempts to rule the winds, and the same will pursue birds in their fight: for he has forsaken the ways of his own vineyard, and he has caused the axles of his own husbandry to go astray; and he goes through a dry desert, and a land appointed to drought, and he gathers barrenness with his hands.
13A foolish and bold woman, who knows not modesty, comes to lack a morsel.
14She sits at the doors of her house, on a seat openly in the streets,
15calling to passers by, and to those that are going right on their ways;
16saying, Whoso is most senseless of you, let him turn aside to me; and I exhort those that lack prudence, saying,
17Take and enjoy secret bread, and the sweet water of theft.
18But he knows that mighty men die by her, and he falls in with a snare of hell. But hasten away, delay not in the place, neither fix your eye upon her: for thus shall you go through strange water; but do you abstain from strange water, and drink not of a strange fountain, that you may live long, and years of life may be added to you.
Commemorations
Holy Fathers Slain at St Sabbas Monastery
The holy Monastery of St Sabbas is still in existence today, by the providence of God, though several times in its history it has been plundered and left empty. At one time it was attacked by Arab raiders. The monks considered fleeing, but their abbot, Thomas, said, ‘We have fled from the world into this wilderness for the love of Christ; it would be shameful for us now to flee from the wilderness for fear of men. If we are killed here, we shall be killed through love for Christ, for whose sake we have come here to live.’ So the monks agreed with one mind to wait their attackers unarmed. The Arabs killed some with arrows, and shut some in the cave of St Sabbas, lighting a fire at the entrance to suffocate them with smoke. The whole company of monks were thus privileged to give their lives for Christ’s sake.
Accounts of the date differ substantially: the Great Horologion says that they died during the reign of the Emperor Heraclius, when St Modestus was Patriarch of Jerusalem (632-634); the Prologue that they died in 796 during the reign of Constantine and Irene, when Elias was Patriarch of Jerusalem.
St Photine the Samaritan Woman (66)
See her commemoration on February 26.
St Cuthbert the Wonderworker, Bishop of Lindisfarne (687)
‘Saint Cuthbert was born in Britain about the year 635, and became a monk in his youth at the monastery of Melrose by the River Tweed. After many years of struggle as a true priest of Christ, in the service both of his own brethren and of the neglected Christians of isolated country villages, he became a solitary on Farne Island in 676. After eight years as a hermit, he was constrained to leave his quiet to become Bishop of Lindisfarne, in which office he served for almost two years. He returned to his hermitage two months before he reposed in peace in 687.
‘Because of the miracles he wrought both during his life and at his tomb after death, he is called the “Wonderworker of Britain.” The whole English people honoured him, and kings were both benefactors to his shrine and suppliants of his prayers. Eleven years after his death, his holy relics were revealed to be incorrupt; when his body was translated from Lindisfarne to Durham Cathedral in August of 1104, his body was still found to be untouched by decay, giving off “an odour of the sweetest fragrancy,” and “from the flexibility of its joints representing a person asleep rather than dead.” Finally, when the most impious Henry VIII desecrated his shrine, opening it to despoil it of its valuables, his body was again found incorrupt, and was buried in 1542. It is believed that after this the holy relics of Saint Cuthbert were hidden to preserve them from further desecration.’ (Great Horologion)