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

About him we have many words to say, and hard to interpret, seeing you have become dull of hearing. ¹²For although by this time you should be teachers, you again need to have someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the revelations of God. You have come to need milk, and not solid food. ¹³For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby. ¹⁴But solid food is for those who are full grown, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

¹Therefore leaving the teaching of the first principles of Christ, let’s press on to perfection—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God, ²of the teaching of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. ³This will we do, if God permits. ⁴For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, ⁵and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame. ⁷For the land which has drunk the rain that comes often on it and produces a crop suitable for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receives blessing from God; ⁸but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

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.”