service files first.md

ON MONDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK

Prokeimenon. Tone 4. Psalm 1.

Then the reading from the Ladder.

**We sing the following troparion of the Prophecy, and after it we read the Prophecy. This we do throughout the holy Lent at the Trithekti.**

AT THE TRITHEKTI

Prokeimenon. Tone 7. Psalm 2.

Tone 5.

Lord, Lord, at whom all things quake and tremble before the face of your power, we fall down before you, O Immortal; we beseech you, Holy One: \* Save our souls, at the prayers of your Saints.

Save our souls, at the prayers of your Saints.

Lord, Lord, at whom all things quake, and tremble before the face of your power; we fall down before you, O Immortal; we beseech you, Holy One: Save our souls, at the prayers of your Saints.

The Lord knows the way of the just, and the way of the ungodly will perish.

Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.

The Reading is from the Prophecy of Isaias.

A Vision which Isaias, son of Amos, saw, which he saw against Judea and Jerusalem, in the reign of Ozias and Jotham and Achaz and Ezekias, who reigned over Judea. Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, because the Lord has spoken. I begot children and exalted them, but they rejected me. An ox knows its owner, and an ass its lord’s manger; but Israel does not know me, and my people has not understood. Woe, sinful nation, people full of sins, evil seed, lawless children! You have deserted the Lord and angered the Holy One of Israel. Why would you still be smitten as you add iniquity to iniquity? The whole head is in pain and the whole heart in grief; from feet to head there is no wholeness, nothing but wound, bruise, festering sore; it is not possible to apply plaster, or oil, or bandages. Your land is desert, your cities destroyed by fire; as for your country foreigners devour it before your eyes, and it has become a desert, ravaged by foreign peoples. The daughter of Sion will be abandoned, like a tent in a vineyard and like a store house in cucumber patch, like a city besieged. And had the Lord of hosts not left us seed, we had become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrha. Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom. Attend to the law of God, people of Gomorrha. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I am full of holocausts of rams, and the fat of rams and the blood of bulls and goats I do not want. You are not to come to appear to me; who sought these things from your hands? You shall no more come to trample my courts; if you bring flour it is vain; incense is an abomination to me. Your new moons and Sabbaths and high days I do not endure; fast and holiday and your feasts my soul hates; you have become a excess for me, I shall no longer forgive your sins. When you stretch out your hands to me, I shall turn away me eyes from you; and if you multiply supplication, I shall not listen to you; for your hands are full of blood. Wash and become clean; put away the evils from your souls; in my sight cease from your evils, learn to do good, seek out judgement, deliver the wronged, judge for the orphan and do justice to the widow. And come, let us reason together, says the Lord; and if your sins are as scarlet, I will make them white as snow, while if they are crimson, I will make them white as wool. And if you are willing and will listen to me, you eat the good things of the land; but if you are not willing, and will not listen to me, a sword devours you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken this.

Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice at him with trembling.

Why did nations rage, and peoples meditate vain things? ****