Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us. Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous.

The reading is from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (4:9-16)

Brethren, God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death? because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are illclad and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless? when persecuted, we endure? when slandered, we try to conciliate? we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things.

I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators or me.