At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town.

As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening.

[From the descendants of Alexander’s officers] there sprang a sinful offshoot, Antiochus Epiphanes, son of King Antiochus, once a hostage at Rome.

Brothers and sisters: You know how one must imitate us.

Then they asked him, “Teacher, when will this happen?

Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven,/ when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,/ and the day that is coming will set them on fire,/ leaving them neither root nor branch,/ says the Lord of hosts./ But for you who fear my name, there will arise/ the sun of justice with its healing rays.

When peaceful stillness compassed everything/ and the night in its swift course was half spent,/ Your all-­powerful word, from heaven’s royal throne/ bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land,/ bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree./ And as he alighted, he filled every place with death;/ he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth.

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.

All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God,/ and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is,/ and from studying the works did not discern the artisan;/ But either fire, or wind, or the swift air,/ or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water,/ or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods./ Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,/ let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;/ for the original source of beauty fashioned them./ Or if they were struck by their might and energy,/ let them from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them./ For from the greatness and the beauty of created things/ their original author, by analogy, is seen./ But yet, for these the blame is less;/ For they indeed have gone astray perhaps,/ though they seek God and wish to find him./ For they search busily among his works,/ but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair./ But again, not even these are pardonable./ For if they so far succeeded in knowledge/ that they could speculate about the world,/ how did they not more quickly find its Lord?

Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.