Ode 3. The Irmos.

Iambic. The Irmos.

‘To the Son begotten of the Father without change before the ages, and in these last times without seed made flesh from a Virgin, to Christ God let us cry aloud: You have raised up our horn. Holy are you, O Lord!’

Glory. Both now.

Adam, formed of dust, who had shared in a better breath of life and slipped down to corruption through a woman’s deception, seeing Christ born from a woman cries out: For me you have become as me; glory to you, O Lord!

You have made yourself, O Christ, one in form with a moulding of vile clay, and by sharing in what is worse, our flesh, you grant a share in divine stock, becoming mortal, yet remaining God, and raising up our horn. Holy are you, O Lord!

Bethlehem be glad, palace of Juda’s Princes; for from you Christ, who shepherds Israel and is seated on the shoulders of the Cherubim, coming forth visibly and raising up our horn, reigns over all.

‘Accept, O Benefactor, the praises of your servants,

‘Humbling the haughty, despiteful look of the foe,

‘O blessed Lord, who see all, raise us all above sin,

‘And establish your singers, firm and unshaken,

‘Upon the foundation of the faith’.

The shepherd choir, abiding in the fields,

Counted beyond all thought worthy to see

The all-blest Offspring of an all-pure Bride,

Were stunned by the strange sight: an angel host

Praising Christ King, incarnate without seed.

He, who rules heaven’s height, in his compassion

Became as us from Maiden without bridegroom;

Word without matter once, in the last times

Made solid by the flesh, that he might draw

The fallen first created to himself.

The Ypakoï. Tone 8.

Heaven, calling the Magi by a star, brought the first fruits of the nations to you, an infant lying in a manger; sceptres and thrones did not astonish them, but utter poverty; for what is meaner than a cave, what humbler than swaddling clothes? In which there shone forth the wealth of your godhead. Lord, glory to you!

When we say an Ypakoï we do not say a Kathisma, as we have found in some Typika.

Kathisma. Tone 8.

Let heaven rejoice and let earth be glad, because the Lamb of God has been born on earth, granting redemption to the world. The Word who is in the bosom of the Father has come forth from the Virgin without seed. The Magi were amazed when they saw him in Bethlehem, born as a babe; whom all things glorify.

**The same again.**