Prophet Zachariah and Elizabeth; Holy Hieromartyr Athanasius of Brest-Litovsk (1649); Holy Martyrs Abda the bishop, Hormizd and Sunin of Persia (4th c)

For this service of giving that you perform not only makes up for lack among the saints, but abounds also through much giving of thanks to God, ¹³seeing that through the proof given by this service, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the Good News of Christ and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all, ¹⁴while they themselves also, with supplication on your behalf, yearn for you by reason of the exceeding grace of God in you. ¹⁵Now thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!

¹Now I Paul, myself, entreat you by the humility and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you. ²Yes, I beg you that I may not, when present, show courage with the confidence with which I intend to be bold against some, who consider us to be walking according to the flesh. ³For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; ⁴for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, ⁵throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, ⁶and being in readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience is made full.

⁷Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the tombs of the righteous, ³⁰and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. ³²Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. ³³You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? ³⁴Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, ³⁵that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.

³⁷“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! ³⁸Behold, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”