Daily Reading:

First Week of Great Lent, Tone 3

Wednesday

SIXTH HOUR

Isaiah 2:3-11

     And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers. Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots: Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not. Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

VESPERS

Genesis 1:24-2:3

     And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Proverbs 2:1-22

     My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.

LITURGY OF THE PRESANCTIFIED GIFTS.

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ST ISIDORE OF PELUSIUM
HOLY HIEROMARTYR ALDATE

Troparion of the Feast    Tone 1

Rejoice, thou who art full of grace,/ Mother of God and Virgin,/ for from thee arose the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God,/ to give light to those in darkness./ Rejoice thou also, righteous Elder, who didst take in thine arms the Redeemer of our souls,/ Who also gives us the grace of resurrection.

Troparion of St Isidore    Tone 4

In thy wisdom thou didst gloriously adorn the Church of Christ/ with thy many homilies, O righteous Isidore,/ thou wast purified by abstinence, deed and divine vision/ and didst shine forth in the world./ Through thy words, O Father, we are guided and initiated into a more excellent life.

Troparion of St Aldate    Tone 1

Through thy pious upbringing thou didst become a shining beacon of the Orthodox Faith,/ O Hierarch Aldate./ Wherefore, O Saint, intercede for us that not straying from the true Faith,/ we may attain eternal salvation.

Kontakion of the Feast    Tone 1

Thou Who didst sanctify the Virgin's womb by Thy birth/ and bless Symeon's hands as was fitting/ hast now come to us and saved us, O Christ our God./ But grant peace in the midst of wars to Thy community,/ and strengthen the Church which Thou hast loved,/ O only Lover of mankind.

Kontakion of St Isidore    Tone 4

O Isidore, thou wast another morning star,/ and the Church is illumined by the brilliance of thy words./ She cries out to thee: Rejoice, O divinely wise and blessed Isidore.

Kontakion of St Aldate    Tone 2

As a torch of truth, a tower of strength,/ a bastion of Faith, O Martyr Hierarch Aldate,/ thou art the adornment of Gloucester,/ the joy of all our nation and most worthy of all praise.