Forefeast of Theophany

Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, ⁶but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. ⁷Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice, ⁸don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of the trial in the wilderness, ⁹where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years. ¹⁰Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’ ¹¹As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’” ¹⁷With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

As he was now getting near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they had seen, ³⁸saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!”

³⁹Some of the Pharisees from the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

⁴⁰He answered them, “I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would cry out.”

⁴¹When he came near, he saw the city and wept over it, ⁴²saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes. ⁴³For the days will come on you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side, ⁴⁴and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”