Philaret, taking the remaining ox and putting the yoke on his shoulders, went home. As he approached the gate of his house, his wife, seeing that the ox was going ahead, and her husband was following him with a yoke on his shoulders, said to him:

"My lord!" Where is your other ox?

Philaret answered her:

"While I was resting after work, and the oxen were grazing free, one of them went away and got lost, or perhaps someone took him and took him away.

Hearing this, Philaret's wife was greatly grieved and hastened to send her son to find the lost ox. After going through many fields, the young man finally found his ox in the yoke of the farmer. Recognizing the ox, he angrily said to the farmer:

"Wicked, dishonest man! How dare you harness another man's ox and work on it? Where and how did you get this ox and harness it to yours? Is this not the same ox that disappeared from my father? And when you found him, you stole him away like a wolf, and took him to yourself. Give me the ox, and if you do not give it back, you will answer for it in judgment like a thief!

The farmer meekly answered him:

"Do not be angry with me, young man, son of a holy man, and do not offend me without any fault on my part." For your father, taking pity on my misfortune and poverty, voluntarily gave me this ox of his, since my ox, working under the yoke, suddenly fell unexpectedly.

Hearing this, the youth was ashamed of his vain anger. Hurrying home, he told all this to his mother. And she, having listened to him, cried out with tears:

"Woe to me, poor wife of an unmerciful husband!

And she tore her hair and, screaming and screaming, ran to her husband, reproaching him:

"You are an inhuman man with a heart of stone!"

And therefore it was not for God's sake that thou didst give thy ox to the peasant, but for thyself's sake, that thou wouldst not labor to harness it, but live in idleness and idleness. However, what answer will you give to the Lord, if because of your laziness I and your children perish of hunger?

Looking at his wife, Blessed Philaret answered her with meekness: