In the spring of 387, the ancient city of Antioch was close to ruin. A desperate protest against a new tax ended in violence, and the imperial statues that guarded the city's safety were torn down. The emperor's judges were on their way, and no one knew who would live or die. Into this season of public dread, the young priest John Chrysostom stepped forward to preach. Night after night, he held his shaken city in the church's refuge — weeping with them, rebuking them, praying over them, and drilling into their hearts the one truth that could survive anything: that God has not abandoned his people, and that no earthly terror is stronger than repentance and mercy. These twenty-one homilies, here rendered in clear, present-day English, are a masterpiece of ancient Christian counsel: gritty, tender, and strangely timeless. Whether you read them in a season of personal trial or as a portrait of a church at its best, they speak with surprising freshness. Part of The World Scriptures Library.