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

Let’s fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest. ²For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard. ³For we who have believed do enter into that rest, even as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, they will not enter into my rest;” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴For he has said this somewhere about the seventh day, “God rested on the seventh day from all his works;” ⁵and in this place again, “They will not enter into my rest.”

⁶Seeing therefore it remains that some should enter into it, and they to whom the good news was preached before failed to enter in because of disobedience, ⁷he again defines a certain day, “today”, saying through David so long a time afterward (just as has been said), “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”

⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. ⁹There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. ¹⁰For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. ¹¹Let’s therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience. ¹²For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

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.”