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Sunday 20 July 2025

6th Sunday after Pentecost

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No Fast — Fish, Wine and Oil are Allowed Tone 5

Holy Prophet Elijah

Saints commemorated

Martyrs Maria (Skobtsova), Dimitri (Klepenin) and those with them, who perished in the Nazi concentration camps (1944-1945)

Mother Maria — Elizaveta Pilenko, twice married, poet of the Petersburg Symbolist circle, briefly mayor of Anapa in the revolution, and from 1932 a nun in Paris — is the great modern Orthodox witness to the identity of the Liturgy with the service of the poor. Tonsured with the blessing that her monastery should be the world, she ran houses of hospitality in Paris for the destitute of the Russian emigration; and under the German occupation she and her chaplain Fr Dimitri Klepinin hid Jews, issued them baptismal certificates, and moved them out of the city. She was arrested in February 1943 and died in the gas chamber at Ravensbrück on 31 March 1945, Holy Saturday, by one account in the place of another woman. The Ecumenical Patriarchate glorified her in 2004 together with Fr Dimitri, her son Yuri Skobtsov and Ilya Fondaminsky, and the Church keeps them on July 20.
Aaron the High Priest

Aaron, son of Amram and Jochebed of the tribe of Levi, elder brother of Moses and of Miriam, is the first high priest of Israel and the head of the whole Aaronic priesthood. He was given to Moses as his mouth before Pharaoh, held up his brother's hands at Rephidim, was consecrated with his sons to the service of the Tabernacle, and bore on his breast the twelve stones of the tribes. His failure at the golden calf and his vindication in the rebellion of Korah — when his censer stayed the plague and his dry rod budded, blossomed and bore almonds overnight — are equally part of his memory. For murmuring with Moses at the waters of Meribah he was not permitted to enter the promised land, and died on Mount Hor at the age of a hundred and twenty-three, his vestments passing to his son Eleazar. The Church reads his priesthood as the type of Christ's and his budded rod as a figure of the Theotokos, and keeps his memory on July 20.
Abramius of Galich

Abramius — in Russian usage Avraamy, and in English commonly Abraham — of Galich and Chukhloma was a disciple of Sergius of Radonezh who carried the Trinity Lavra's monastic renewal into the wild forest country north-east of the Volga. About the year 1350 he found, on a mountain above Lake Galich, an icon of the Mother of God shining with light, and around it built the first of four monasteries which he founded in succession through the Galich and Chukhloma lands — leaving each in turn to a disciple and withdrawing deeper into the forest as soon as a community gathered. He died at the last of them, the Protection monastery on Lake Chukhloma, on 20 July 1375. He is one of the northern "colonisers", the generation of Sergius's disciples through whom the Russian monastic movement crossed into the forests of Kostroma and Vologda, and he is venerated as a wonderworker of the Galich country.
Athanasius of Brest

Athanasius Filippovich, abbot of the monastery of St Symeon at Brest, was the most uncompromising Orthodox voice in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the generation after the Union of Brest (1596), and he paid for it with his life. A learned monk of the Vilna and Pinsk houses, he carried the case of the persecuted Orthodox of the Commonwealth to the Tsar at Moscow and, again and again, to the Diet at Warsaw, interrupting its sessions with prophetic denunciations of the Union and being imprisoned, beaten and deposed for it; his Diariush ("Diary") is a landmark of Ruthenian polemical literature. He was shot in a wood outside Brest on the night of 4–5 September 1648, having been made to dig his own grave. His body was found incorrupt eight months later and brought to his monastery; the Church keeps his martyrdom on September 5 and the uncovering of his relics on July 20. His saying — that the Union would perish and Orthodoxy flourish — is the sentence by which he is remembered.
Elias I of Jerusalem

Elias, Patriarch of Jerusalem from 494 to 516, was an Arab by birth and an Egyptian monk by formation, who came to Palestine as a refugee from the anti-Chalcedonian persecution in Egypt, lived under Euthymius the Great in the desert, and was raised to the throne of the Holy City. His patriarchate is inseparable from the two great archimandrites of the Judaean desert, Sabbas the Sanctified and Theodosius the Cenobiarch, whom he himself appointed over the hermits and the cenobites; and when the Emperor Anastasius I moved to have the Council of Chalcedon condemned, it was the monks of the desert, marching on Jerusalem in their thousands, who saved their patriarch for a time. He stood with Flavian II of Antioch at the synod of Sidon in 512, was deposed by imperial officers in 516, and died in exile at Aila on the Red Sea in 518 — by the account of Cyril of Scythopolis, two days after learning by revelation of the death of the Emperor who had banished him. The Church keeps him on July 20 as a confessor.
Elijah the Prophet

Elijah the Tishbite is the greatest of the prophets before the Forerunner, and the one figure of the Old Covenant whom the Church calls an angel in the flesh. He appears in the Books of Kings without genealogy or preamble, standing before Ahab to shut up the heavens; he is fed by ravens at the brook Cherith and by a widow's inexhaustible meal and oil at Zarephath; he raises her dead son; he calls down fire on Mount Carmel before the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and slays them at the Kishon; he flees Jezebel, fasts forty days to Horeb, and there meets God not in wind, earthquake or fire but in the sound of a fine stillness; he condemns Ahab over Naboth's vineyard; and at the last he divides the Jordan with his rolled mantle and is caught up in a chariot of fire while Elisha cries after him and catches the falling mantle. Because he was taken alive, the Church looks for him again: he stood with Moses beside the transfigured Christ on Tabor, and the prophecy of Malachi and the Apocalypse await him as forerunner of the Second Coming and martyr under Antichrist. His feast on July 20 is among the most universally and most popularly kept days of the fixed calendar, from the Mar Elias monasteries of Syria and Lebanon to the summit chapels of Greece and the Ilyin Day of the Slavs.
Flavian II of Antioch

Flavian, Patriarch of Antioch from 498 to 512, is one of the two confessor-patriarchs whom the Church keeps on July 20, the other being his ally Elias I of Jerusalem. A Syrian monk of the monastery of Tilmognon who had served the see of Antioch as its envoy at the imperial court, he was raised to the patriarchal throne by the Emperor Anastasius I on the understanding that he would accept the Henotikon of Zeno; and though he subscribed that document and tried for fourteen years to hold a middle position, he would not do the one thing that was finally demanded of him — anathematise the Council of Chalcedon. Denounced as a Nestorian by Philoxenus of Mabbug, condemned by a packed synod at Sidon in 512, and replaced on his throne by Severus, he was deposed and banished to Petra in Arabia, where he died about 518, in the year in which the Empire returned to the faith of Chalcedon and restored his name to the diptychs.
Ilia Chavchavadze

Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907) was the central figure of the Georgian national revival of the nineteenth century — poet, novelist, editor, historian, banker and public man — and the moving spirit behind the recovery of the Georgian language, the Georgian past, and the cause of the autocephaly of the Georgian Church, which had been abolished by the Russian Empire in 1811. He was assassinated on the road near Mtskheta on 30 August 1907, together with an attempt upon his wife Olga, by gunmen of the revolutionary left, and his widow asked that the killers be pardoned. The Georgian Orthodox Church glorified him in 1987 as Saint Ilia the Righteous (Ilia Martali), and keeps his memory on July 20, the feast of the Prophet Elijah, whose name he bore.
Salome the Georgian

Salome was a Georgian nun of the women's community attached to the Monastery of the Cross at Jerusalem in the thirteenth century, who was seized by the Muslim authorities of the city for speaking openly in defence of Christ. Under threat she at first denied him; then, repenting, she came forward and confessed publicly that Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and for this she was tortured and beheaded, and her body burned. Almost nothing else has survived of her, and the Georgian and OCA calendars keep her on July 20 with the barest of notices. Her memory is preserved chiefly for the shape of it: a denial, a repentance, and a second confession that could not be retracted.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Elswith, widow of King Alfred the Great (9th C)
St. Modmund, martyr of Gloucester

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to thy gentleness: take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy hierarch Elias, guide our life in peace.

Apolytikion — Tone 4

The angel in the flesh, the foundation of the prophets, the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, the glorious Elijah, sending down his grace from on high upon Elisha, drives away diseases and cleanses lepers; wherefore he pours forth healings upon those who honour him.

Apolytikion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to thy gentleness: take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy hierarch Flavian, guide our life in peace.

Apolytikion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to thy gentleness: take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy hierarch Elias, guide our life in peace.

Apolytikion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to thy gentleness: take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy hierarch Flavian, guide our life in peace.

Kontakion — Tone 8

Illumined by the light that shone from the holy icon, thou wast thyself made a lamp to the northern forests, O venerable Abramius; and building four habitations of the Spirit, thou didst depart from each of them into stillness. Wherefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, wonderworker of the Galich land.

Kontakion — Tone 8

Thou didst set thy face against the false union and wast not moved by prison or by blows, and when thy blood was shed in the night among the trees thou didst leave to thy people a word that has not failed: that falsehood shall perish and Orthodoxy shall flourish. Wherefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, O Athanasius, boast of the land of Brest.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Shepherd of the Holy City and father of the desert's fathers, thou wast driven from thy throne for the confession of Christ in two natures, and didst end thy course by the shore of the sea in a strange land; wherefore the Church honours thee, O confessor Elias.

Kontakion — Tone 2

O prophet and foreseer of the mighty works of God, Elijah of great name, who by thy word didst stay the rain-bearing clouds: intercede for us with the only Lover of mankind.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Thou didst shepherd the throne of Antioch in evil days, and wouldst not betray the Council's confession of the two natures of Christ; wherefore, deprived of thy see and dying in a strange land, thou wast shown a confessor of the truth, O all-blessed Flavian.

Kontakion — Tone 8

Kontakion — Tone 2

O prophet and foreseer of the mighty works of God, Elijah of great name, who by thy word didst stay the rain-bearing clouds: intercede for us with the only Lover of mankind.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Synaxarion

He held back the rain, and thrice brought fire down below; but Elijah, running upward, cleaves the stream. On the twentieth Elijah the horseman was caught up in a chariot.

Synaxarion

He held back the rain, and thrice brought fire down below; but Elijah, running upward, cleaves the stream. On the twentieth Elijah the horseman was caught up in a chariot.

Troparion

As we celebrate the memory of thy righteous one Aaron, O Lord, through him we entreat thee: save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thou didst leave the community of thy teacher for the wilderness, and in the forests beyond the Volga didst raise up houses of prayer, fleeing from glory as often as it found thee, O our father Abramius; and having found the icon of the Mother of God shining upon the mountain, thou didst enrich all that land: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thou wast a fearless advocate of the faith of thy fathers, and wouldst not be silent before kings and councils, O venerable martyr Athanasius; digging thine own grave, thou didst go down into it with a prayer, and the earth kept thy body incorrupt for a witness: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thou didst love thy people with the love of Christ, and didst labour for their tongue, their memory and their Church as for thine own soul, O righteous Ilia; and when the bullets found thee on the road, thy blood cried not for vengeance but for pardon. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thou didst find thy cell in the streets of the city and thy monastic rule in the feeding of the hungry, O venerable martyr Maria; and when the hunters came for the innocent, thou didst hide them at the cost of thy life, and wast offered up in the fire on the day of the Lord's burial. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy lamb, O Jesus, crieth with a loud voice: thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking thee I contend, and am crucified and buried with thee in thy baptism; I suffer for thy sake that I may reign with thee, and die for thee that I may live in thee. Receive me as a spotless sacrifice, offered to thee in love. By her prayers, O merciful one, save our souls.

Troparion

As we celebrate the memory of thy righteous one Aaron, O Lord, through him we entreat thee: save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 4

Readings

Vespers

Composite 12 - 3 [1] Kings 17.1-23

¹The word of the Lord came to the Prophet Elias and he said to Achab, ‘As the Lord the God of powers lives, the God of Israel, before whom I stand today, there shall be neither dew nor rain during these years, except by my mouth.’ The word of the Lord came to Elias, saying, ‘Go from here and towards the east, and hide yourself in the brook Chorrath, which is opposite the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I am commanding the ravens to feed you there.’ So he went and settled by the brook Chorrath, which is opposite the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread in the morning, and meat in the evening; and he drank water from the brook. And it cane to pass after some days that the brook dried up, because there was no rain on the land. Then the word of the Lord came to Elias, saying, ‘Arise and go to Sarepta, which belongs to Sidon, and settle there; for see, I am commanding a widow there to feed you.’ And he arose and went to Sarepta, to the gate of the city. And a widow was there gathering sticks. And Elias he called after her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.’ As she was going to bring it, he called after her and said, ‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’ But the woman said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in the jar, and a little oil in the jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my children, that we may eat it, and die.’ Elias said to her, ‘Take courage. Go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your children. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of flour will not fail and the jug of oil will not grow less until the day that the Lord sends rain on the whole land.’ The woman went and did as Elias said, and he and she and her children ate. And from that day the jar of flour did not fail, neither did the jug of oil grow less, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elias. After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elias, ‘Why do you trouble me, man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sins to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son?’ But he said to her, ‘Give me your son.’ He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord, ‘Alas, Lord my God, you have brought calamity upon the widow with whom I am staying, whose witness you are, by killing her son.’ Then he breathed upon the child three times, and called on the Lord and said, ‘Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.’ And so it happened and he cried out. And the Lord listened to the voice of Elias; the child’s soul came into him again, and he lived. Elias took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother. Then Elias said, ‘See, your son is alive.’ So the woman said to Elias, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.’

Composite 13 - 3 [1] Kings 18, 19

¹The word of the Lord came to Elias the Thesbite in the third year, saying, ‘Go, and appear before Achab, and I will give rain on the face of the land. And it came to pass that when Achab saw Elias, he said to him, ‘Is it you, the one who is troubling Israel?’ He answered, ‘I am not troubling Israel; but you are, and your father’s house, by forsaking the Lord our God and following Baal. Now therefore have all Israel assemble to me at Mount Carmel, with the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of the scared groves, who eat at Jezebel’s table.’ So Achab sent to all Israel, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. Elias said to them, ‘How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ Then Elias said to the people, ‘I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord; but the prophets of the sacred grove are very many. Let two bulls be given to us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull, but put no fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord my God. And the god who answers by fire shall be God.’ All the people answered, ‘The word you have spoken today is good.’ Then Elias said to the prophets of shame, ‘Choose for yourselves one calf and prepare it first; then call on the name of your god, but put no fire to it.’ So they took the calf, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, ‘O Baal, hear us!’ But there was no voice, and no answer. They ran upon the altar that they had made. At noon Elias the Thesbite mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud! For your god likes garrulousness.’ And when the time of the offering of the oblation came, there was nothing. Then Elias the Thesbite said to the prophets of abominations, ‘Stand aside now, and I will offer my holocaust’. And Elias said to the people, ‘Come close’. And all the people came closer to him. Elias took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, ‘Israel shall be your name’. With the stones he built and repaired the altar of the Lord that had been cast down. Then he made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. Next he put the pieces of wood on the altar he had made, cut the holocaust in pieces, and laid them on the pieces of wood and piled them on the altar. He said, ‘Bring me two jars of water and pour it on the holocaust and on the pieces of wood.’ Then he said, ‘Do it a second time’; and they did it a second time. Again he said, ‘Do it a third time’; and they did it a third time, so that the water ran all around the altar, and filled the trench also with water. And the prophet Elias cried aloud to heaven and said, ‘Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, hear me today by fire. And let this people known that you alone the Lord. the God of Israel, that I am your servant, and that through you I have done all these things, and that you have turned back the heart of this people to you.’ Then fire from the Lord fell from heaven and consumed the holocaust and the pieces of wood; and the fire licked up the water that was in the trench, the stones, and the dust. And the people fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lord indeed is God; he is God.’ Elias said to them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.’ Then they seized them; and Elias brought them down to the brook Kishon, and killed them there. And after this Elias said to Achab, ‘There is a sound of rushing rain. Harness your chariot and go down, lest the rain catch you.’ Then Elias went up to the top of Carmel; there he bowed himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees and prayed to the Lord. And the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was a heavy rain. Achab went to Jezreel. Achab told Jezebel his wife all that Elias had done. Then Jezebel sent to Elias, saying, ‘Tomorrow I will sacrifice your life like one of them.’ And Elias heard and was afraid; he arose and fled for his life, and came to Beersheba, in the land of Juda; he left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly someone touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat and drink, for you have a long journey.’ Elias looked, and there at his head was a cake of flour and a jar of water. He arose, ate and drank, and slept again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Arise and eat and drink, for you have a long journey.’ He arose, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to mount Horeb. There he entered a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elias?’ Elias answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the Almighty; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Go, return to your way and you will come to the desert way of Damascus; and you shall anoint Elissaios son of Shaphat as prophet in your place.

Composite 14 - 3 [1] Kings 19.19, 20, 21; 4 [2] Kings 2.1,6-14

¹A day came and Elias found Elissaios son of Saphat, who was ploughing. Elias passed by him and threw his mantle over him. Elissaios left the oxen, ran after Elias, and ministered to him. And it came to pass, when the Lord took Elias in a whirlwind as though up to heaven, that Elias went with Elissaios to Galgala. Then Elias said to Elissaios, ‘Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as the Jordan.’ But he said, ‘As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.’ So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the sons of the prophets came, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elias took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water with it; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and the two of them crossed on dry ground. When they had crossed, Elias said to Elissaios, ‘Ask me what I may do for you, before I am taken up from you.’ Elissaios said, ‘Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.’ He responded, ‘You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken up from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.’ It came to pass that as they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elias was taken up in a whirlwind as if into heaven. Elissaios kept watching and crying out, ‘Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ But when he could no longer see him, Elissaios grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. He picked up the mantle of Elias that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Elissaios took the mantle of Elias that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, ‘Where then is the God of Elias, Appho?’ And so he struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elissaios went over on dry ground.

6th Matins Gospel

Luke 24.36-53

³⁶And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. ³⁷But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. ³⁸And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? ³⁹Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. ⁴⁰And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. ⁴¹And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? ⁴²And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. ⁴³And he took it, and did eat before them. ⁴⁴And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. ⁴⁵Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: ⁴⁷And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸And ye are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. ⁵⁰And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. ⁵¹And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. ⁵²And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: ⁵³And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

Epistle

Romans 12.6-14

⁶Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; ⁷Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; ⁸Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness. ⁹Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. ¹⁰Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; ¹¹Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; ¹²Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; ¹³Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. ¹⁴Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.

James 5.10-20 (Prophet Elijah)

¹⁰Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. ¹¹Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. ¹²But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. ¹³Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. ¹⁴Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: ¹⁵And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. ¹⁶Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. ¹⁷Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. ¹⁸And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. ¹⁹Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; ²⁰Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

Gospel

Matthew 9.1-8

¹And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. ²And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. ³And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. ⁴And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? ⁵For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? ⁶But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. ⁷And he arose, and departed to his house. ⁸But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.

Luke 4.22-30 (Prophet Elijah)

²²And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? ²³And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. ²⁴And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. ²⁵But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; ²⁶But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. ²⁷And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. ²⁸And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, ²⁹And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. ³⁰But he passing through the midst of them went his way,