20,000 Martyrs of Nicomedia; Our Holy Father Simon the Outpourer of Myrrh, Founder of Simonopetra Monastery, Mt Athos (1287); Holy Martyr Glycerus

Lay hands hastily on no one. Don’t be a participant in other people’s sins. Keep yourself pure.

²³Be no longer a drinker of water only, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities.

²⁴Some men’s sins are evident, preceding them to judgment, and some also follow later. ²⁵In the same way also there are good works that are obvious, and those that are otherwise can’t be hidden.

¹Let as many as are bondservants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and the doctrine not be blasphemed. ²Those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brothers, but rather let them serve them, because those who partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. Teach and exhort these things.

³If anyone teaches a different doctrine and doesn’t consent to sound words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, ⁴he is conceited, knowing nothing, but obsessed with arguments, disputes, and word battles, from which come envy, strife, insulting, evil suspicions, ⁵constant friction of people of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. Withdraw yourself from such.

⁶But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can’t carry anything out. ⁸But having food and clothing, we will be content with that. ⁹But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. ¹⁰For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

¹¹But you, man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.

Now great multitudes were going with him. He turned and said to them, ²⁶“If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever doesn’t bear his own cross and come after me, can’t be my disciple. ²⁸For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation and isn’t able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him, ³⁰saying, ‘This man began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ ³¹Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³²Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy and asks for conditions of peace. ³³So therefore, whoever of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has, he can’t be my disciple.

³⁴“Salt is good, but if the salt becomes flat and tasteless, with what do you season it? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”