Prophet Zachariah and Elizabeth; Holy Hieromartyr Athanasius of Brest-Litovsk (1649); Holy Martyrs Abda the bishop, Hormizd and Sunin of Persia (4th c)

For I reckon that I am not at all behind the very best apostles. ⁶But though I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not unskilled in knowledge. No, in every way we have been revealed to you in all things.

⁷Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you God’s Good News free of charge? ⁸I robbed other assemblies, taking wages from them that I might serve you. ⁹When I was present with you and was in need, I wasn’t a burden on anyone, for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my need. In everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and I will continue to do so. ¹⁰As the truth of Christ is in me, no one will stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia. ¹¹Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows.

¹²But what I do, that I will continue to do, that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity, that in which they boast, they may be recognized just like us. ¹³For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Christ’s apostles. ¹⁴And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light. ¹⁵It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

¹⁶I say again, let no one think me foolish. But if so, yet receive me as foolish, that I also may boast a little. ¹⁷That which I speak, I don’t speak according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting. ¹⁸Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I will also boast. ¹⁹For you bear with the foolish gladly, being wise. ²⁰For you bear with a man if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, or if he strikes you on the face. ²¹To my shame, I speak as though we had been weak. Yet in whatever way anyone is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the tombs of the righteous, ³⁰and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. ³²Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. ³³You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? ³⁴Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, ³⁵that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.

³⁷“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! ³⁸Behold, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”