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

However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods. ⁹But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, why do you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental principles, to which you desire to be in bondage all over again? ¹⁰You observe days, months, seasons, and years. ¹¹I am afraid for you, that I might have wasted my labor for you.

¹²I beg you, brothers, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong, ¹³but you know that because of weakness in the flesh I preached the Good News to you the first time. ¹⁴That which was a temptation to you in my flesh, you didn’t despise nor reject; but you received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

¹⁵What was the blessing you enjoyed? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. ¹⁶So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? ¹⁷They zealously seek you in no good way. No, they desire to alienate you, that you may seek them. ¹⁸But it is always good to be zealous in a good cause, and not only when I am present with you.

¹⁹My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you— ²⁰but I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

²¹Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, don’t you listen to the law?

“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!’”