July 24, 2024

Events of the day

No commemorations in the content package for this day yet

Fasting

Fast day · Wednesday / Friday

Wednesday and Friday: fast without meat, dairy or eggs. Whether fish is allowed depends on the day's feast — check the church calendar.

• Meat: not allowed
• Dairy & eggs: not allowed
• Fish: not specified
• Oil: allowed
• Wine: allowed

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

• Vespers

  Isaiah 43:9–14

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 4:7–15

• Matins Gospel

  Luke 21:12–19

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  ¹²But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake.

  ¹³It will turn out as a testimony for you.

  ¹⁴Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,

  ¹⁵for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.

  ¹⁶You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.

  ¹⁷You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.

  ¹⁸And not a hair of your head will perish.

  ¹⁹“By your endurance you will win your lives.

• Epistle

  Romans 15:7–16

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  ⁷Therefore accept one another, even as Christ also accepted you, to the glory of God.

  ⁸Now I say that Christ has been made a servant of the circumcision for the truth of God, that he might confirm the promises given to the fathers,

  ⁹and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will give praise to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.”

  ¹⁰Again he says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”

  ¹¹Again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Let all the peoples praise him.”

  ¹²Again, Isaiah says, “There will be the root of Jesse, he who arises to rule over the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles will hope.”

  ¹³Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

  ¹⁴I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others.

  ¹⁵But I write the more boldly to you in part, as reminding you, because of the grace that was given to me by God,

  ¹⁶that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

• Epistle · Boris and Gleb

  Romans 8:28–39

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  ²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.

  ²⁹For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

  ³⁰Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.

  ³¹What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

  ³²He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?

  ³³Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies.

  ³⁴Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

  ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

  ³⁶Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

  ³⁷No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

  ³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

  ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• Gospel

  Matthew 12:38–45

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  ³⁸Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”

  ³⁹But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

  ⁴⁰For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

  ⁴¹The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here.

  ⁴²The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, someone greater than Solomon is here.

  ⁴³When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and doesn’t find it.

  ⁴⁴Then he says, ‘I will return into my house from which I came out,’ and when he has come back, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

  ⁴⁵Then he goes, and takes with himself seven other spirits more evil than he is, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first. Even so will it be also to this evil generation.”

• Gospel · Boris and Gleb

  John 15:17–16:2

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  ¹⁷“I command these things to you, that you may love one another.

  ¹⁸If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

  ¹⁹If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

  ²⁰Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

  ²¹But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.

  ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

  ²³He who hates me, hates my Father also.

  ²⁴If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father.

  ²⁵But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’

  ²⁶“When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

  ²⁷You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

  ¹“I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble.

  ²They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, New Calendar (OCA practice). Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Trisagion