Ode 4. The Irmos.

**Theotokion.**

In the shadowed mountain Avvakum foresaw your immaculate womb, O Pure one, therefore he raised the cry: God will come from Theman and the Holy One from a shadowed, wooded mountain.

Consumed by envy the Hebrew people crucified you on a tree, O Lord; and having annulled the sentence of death, you rose from the dead as mighty, raising the world with you.

‘Why, O women, do you seek the inexhaustible Sweetness with sweet spices? He has risen’, said the one who was seated clothed in white to the Myrrhbearers, ‘and fills the whole world with fragrance’.

Bearing the image of a servant in your surpassing compassion, O Word, you passed by on your way and restored health to the man who had lain sick for many years, and ordered him to take up his bed.

An Angel of the Lord went down at from time to time and stirred up the water in the Sheep Pool, making one, and only one person well; but Christ saves countless multitudes by divine Baptism.

Prince of the Angels, guide of the erring, God’s Chief Captain, be among us at this hour, and offer all our prayers to the only Maker and Master.

The holy Trinity is united in nature, divided in persons: the Father beyond all being, and the co-eternal Son and the Holy and alone all-powerful Spirit.

How did you give suck, O pure one? How give birth to an infant more ancient than Adam? How bear in your embrace as Son him who is borne on the shoulders of the Cherubim? As he understands, as he knows, he who gave all things being.