Martyrs Adrian and Natalia; Vladimir Icon; Our Holy Father Tithoës of the Thebaid (4th c.)

But remember the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: ³³partly, being exposed to both reproaches and oppressions, and partly, becoming partakers with those who were treated so. ³⁴For you both had compassion on me in my chains and joyfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an enduring one in the heavens. ³⁵Therefore don’t throw away your boldness, which has a great reward. ³⁶For you need endurance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise. ³⁷“In a very little while, he who comes will come and will not wait. ³⁸But the righteous one will live by faith. If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”

John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”

¹⁹Jesus said to them, “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can’t fast. ²⁰But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. ²¹No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the patch shrinks and the new tears away from the old, and a worse hole is made. ²²No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the skins, and the wine pours out, and the skins will be destroyed; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins.”