Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy; Avram, Archimandrite of Smolensk; Holy Martyrs Bassa and her sons Theognis, Agapios, and Pistis (4th c.)

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place. ¹⁵For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God in those who are being saved and in those who perish: ¹⁶to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? ¹⁷For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

¹Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as do some, letters of commendation to you or from you? ²You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men, ³being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, served by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in tablets that are hearts of flesh.

He went up into the mountain and called to himself those whom he wanted, and they went to him. ¹⁴He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach ¹⁵and to have authority to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons: ¹⁶Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); ¹⁷James the son of Zebedee; and John, the brother of James, (whom he called Boanerges, which means, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot;

¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Then he came into a house. ²⁰The multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. ²¹When his friends heard it, they went out to seize him; for they said, “He is insane.”