Ven. Alypius the Stylite; Our Holy Father Innocent, Bishop of Irkutsk (1731); St Nikon Metanoite ("Repent!") (ca. 1000)

For you yourselves know, brothers, our visit to you wasn’t in vain, ²but having suffered before and been shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi, we grew bold in our God to tell you the Good News of God in much conflict. ³For our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in deception. ⁴But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News, so we speak—not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts. ⁵For neither were we at any time found using words of flattery, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness (God is witness), ⁶nor seeking glory from men (neither from you nor from others), when we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ. ⁷But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children.

⁸Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us.

They were also bringing their babies to him, that he might touch them. But when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. ¹⁶Jesus summoned them, saying, “Allow the little children to come to me, and don’t hinder them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. ¹⁷Most certainly, I tell you, whoever doesn’t receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.”

²⁶Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”

²⁷But he said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

²⁸Peter said, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”

²⁹He said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or wife, or brothers, or parents, or children, for God’s Kingdom’s sake, ³⁰who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the world to come, eternal life.”