Martyrs Menodora, Metrodora, Nymphodora; Poulcheria the Empress

But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed. ¹²I wish that those who disturb you would cut themselves off.

¹³For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants to one another. ¹⁴For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.

¹⁶But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. ¹⁷For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ¹⁹Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, ²⁰idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, ²¹envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. ¹⁸He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only born Son of God. ¹⁹This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. ²⁰For everyone who does evil hates the light and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. ²¹But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”