St Hieron and the Holy 33 Martyrs of Melitene; Saint Willibrord, first Bishop of Utrecht and Apostle of Holland (739); Lazarus the Wonderworker

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, ²to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, ⁷even as you learned from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf, ⁸who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.

⁹For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy,

The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the right times? ⁴³Blessed is that servant whom his lord will find doing so when he comes. ⁴⁴Truly I tell you that he will set him over all that he has. ⁴⁵But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My lord delays his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and to be drunken, ⁴⁶then the lord of that servant will come in a day when he isn’t expecting him and in an hour that he doesn’t know, and will cut him in two, and place his portion with the unfaithful. ⁴⁷That servant who knew his lord’s will, and didn’t prepare nor do what he wanted, will be beaten with many stripes, ⁴⁸but he who didn’t know, and did things worthy of stripes, will be beaten with few stripes. To whomever much is given, of him will much be required; and to whom much was entrusted, of him more will be asked.