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.”

Jesus entered into the temple of God and drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers’ tables and the seats of those who sold the doves. ¹³He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!”

¹⁴The lame and the blind came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

¹⁷He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and camped there.

¹⁸Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry.

¹⁹Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves. He said to it, “Let there be no fruit from you forever!” Immediately the fig tree withered away.

²⁰When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree immediately wither away?”