February 10, 2025

Events of the day

• St Ephrem the Syrian

  Commemoration

• Fast-free week after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee

  Informational

Fasting

No fast

The week after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is fast-free, including Wednesday and Friday.

Food rules are reference church information. Agree your personal measure of fasting with a priest; consult a doctor if you are ill.

Readings of the day

• Epistle

  2 Peter 1:20–2:9

  Show the text

  ²⁰knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.

  ²¹For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

  ¹But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.

  ²Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned.

  ³In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn’t linger, and their destruction will not slumber.

  ⁴For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment;

  ⁵and didn’t spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;

  ⁶and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way;

  ⁷and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked

  ⁸(for that righteous man dwelling among them was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds):

  ⁹the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

• Gospel

  Mark 13:9–13

  Show the text

  ⁹But watch yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils. You will be beaten in synagogues. You will stand before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them.

  ¹⁰The Good News must first be preached to all the nations.

  ¹¹When they lead you away and deliver you up, don’t be anxious beforehand, or premeditate what you will say, but say whatever will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.

  ¹²“Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death.

  ¹³You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, Julian calendar. Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

• St Ephrem the Syrian
• Prayer of the day: Prayer of St Ephrem the Syrian