Leavetaking of the Nativity of the Forerunner

For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.

¹⁸So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life. ¹⁹For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous. ²⁰The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly, ²¹that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ²May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?

Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?”

¹⁵Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. ¹⁶No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch would tear away from the garment, and a worse hole is made. ¹⁷Neither do people put new wine into old wineskins, or else the skins would burst, and the wine be spilled, and the skins ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”