"Behold, many of you are on horseback, and not a few men on foot, young and strong. Let us all go to the cave of Apollo, to the place of your assembly, you are in front, and I, as an old man, will follow you, and give one another our word that whoever of us comes first, his God is great and true, and it behooves us to believe in Him. If some of you on horseback, others strong and young, outstrip me on foot, old and weak in body, and reach the temple of Apollo before me, then your god is truly God. But if I, old man, walk there sooner than you, then my God is greater than your god, and you will have to believe in Him.

All approved of his speech and agreed to the condition he proposed, saying among themselves:

"This old man will not be able to get there in four days: the path is long and inconvenient, for it stretches among high mountains and deep valleys covered with thick bushes.

After this everyone hastened to the cave, some trusting in their horses, others in their feet, and Saint Konon followed them, moving with difficulty. On the way he fervently prayed to God, and immediately the holy Archangel Michael appeared before him, took him and in an instant carried him to the place where everyone strove. And the people hurrying on horseback and on foot were thrown into confusion by the Archangel by an invisible force, and they wandered through the mountains and wilds, and men and horses fell from the mountain heights and crashed, and all day and all night they could not reach the Apollo cave, and they were not even sure whether they were going that way. In the morning, unexpectedly for them, Saint Konon came out to meet them. Seeing him, the people were greatly astonished. The saint, laughing at them, asked:

"Why couldn't you come sooner?" I have been waiting for you for a long time and decided to go to meet you.

The people, greatly exhausted, told the saint everything that had happened to them, and besought him to show them the way to the Apollo temple. Then Saint Konon went ahead of them and, leading them to a cave, said to them:

"Here, I have fulfilled my condition and came here before you. Now you must acknowledge that my God is great, and believe in him, and deliver your god into my hands, and I will repay him for having deceived you so far.

But they cried out to the saint:

- No, do not lay the blame on our god and do not take revenge on him: it is our own fault that we delayed coming: we lost our way on the way, and therefore could not fulfill the agreement.

Such an answer greatly angered the saint, and he said to them:

"If you still do not believe in my God, but continue to believe in your idol, will you do what he himself proclaims to you?"

They all answered:

"If we truly hear the voice of our God, we will immediately fulfill his word, for we believe in him without doubt.

And again they made an agreement with the saint and gave their word more firmly than the first, that they would believe everything that their god would say. Then the saint, standing before the cave where the pagan temple of Apollo was located, cried out to the idol with a loud voice: