20,000 Martyrs of Nicomedia; Our Holy Father Simon the Outpourer of Myrrh, Founder of Simonopetra Monastery, Mt Athos (1287); Holy Martyr Glycerus

Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. ²For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect person, able to bridle the whole body also. ³Indeed, we put bits into the horses’ mouths so that they may obey us, and we guide their whole body. ⁴Behold, the ships also, though they are so big and are driven by fierce winds, are yet guided by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires. ⁵So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest! ⁶And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna. ⁷For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and sea creature is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind; ⁸but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in the image of God. ¹⁰Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Now great multitudes were going with him. He turned and said to them, ²⁶“If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever doesn’t bear his own cross and come after me, can’t be my disciple. ²⁸For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation and isn’t able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him, ³⁰saying, ‘This man began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ ³¹Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³²Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy and asks for conditions of peace. ³³So therefore, whoever of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has, he can’t be my disciple.

³⁴“Salt is good, but if the salt becomes flat and tasteless, with what do you season it? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”