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

To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. ¹⁶They profess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

¹But say the things which fit sound doctrine, ²that older men should be temperate, sensible, sober minded, sound in faith, in love, and in perseverance, ³and that older women likewise be reverent in behavior, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good, ⁴that they may train the young wives to love their husbands, to love their children, ⁵to be sober minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that God’s word may not be blasphemed.

⁶Likewise, exhort the younger men to be sober minded. ⁷In all things show yourself an example of good works. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness, incorruptibility, ⁸and soundness of speech that can’t be condemned, that he who opposes you may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say about us.

⁹Exhort servants to be in subjection to their own masters and to be well-pleasing in all things, not contradicting, ¹⁰not stealing, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior, in all things.

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.”