Martyrs Platon and Roman; Holy Martyr Romanus and the holy child who declared for Christ (305); Holy New Martyr Anastasius of Epirus (1750), and Daniel, whom he converted

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. ²For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, ³if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.

⁶Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; ⁷for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. ⁹Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him. ¹⁰For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

As they went on the way, a certain man said to him, “I want to follow you wherever you go, Lord.”

⁵⁸Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

⁵⁹He said to another, “Follow me!” But he said, “Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.”

⁶⁰But Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but you go and announce God’s Kingdom.”

⁶¹Another also said, “I want to follow you, Lord, but first allow me to say good-bye to those who are at my house.”

⁶²But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for God’s Kingdom.”