First Reading

Isaiah 1:10, 16-20

10Listen to the Word of the Lord, you leaders of the people of Sodom. Listen closely to the law of our God, O people of Gomorrah. 11The multitude of your sacrifices, what is that to me, says the Lord? I am full. I do not desire holocausts of rams, nor the fat of fatlings, nor the blood of calves and of lambs and of he-goats. 12When you approach before my sight, who is it that requires these things from your hands, so that you would walk in my courts? 13You should no longer offer sacrifice in vain. Incense is an abomination to me. The new moons and the Sabbaths and the other feast days, I will not receive. Your gatherings are iniquitous. 14My soul hates your days of proclamation and your solemnities. They have become bothersome to me. I labor to endure them. 15And so, when you extend your hands, I will avert my eyes from you. And when you multiply your prayers, I will not heed you. For your hands are full of blood. 16Wash, become clean, take away the evil of your intentions from my eyes. Cease to act perversely. 17Learn to do good. Seek judgment, support the oppressed, judge for the orphan, defend the widow. 18And then approach and accuse me, says the Lord. Then, if your sins are like scarlet, they shall be made white like snow; and if they are red like vermillion, they shall become white like wool. 19If you are willing, and you listen to me, then you will eat the good things of the land. 20But if you are not willing, and you provoke me to anger, then the sword will devour you. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 49

8I will not reprove you for your sacrifices. Moreover, your holocausts are ever in my sight. 9I will not accept calves from your house, nor he-goats from your flocks. 10For all the wild beasts of the forest are mine: the cattle on the hills and the oxen. 11I know all the flying things of the air, and the beauty of the field is with me. 12If I should be hungry, I would not tell you: for the whole world is mine, and all its plentitude. 13Shall I gnaw on the flesh of bulls? Or would I drink the blood of goats? 14Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High. 15And call upon me in the day of tribulation. I will rescue you, and you will honor me. 16But to the sinner, God has said: Why do you discourse on my justices, and take up my covenant through your mouth? 17Truly, you have hated discipline, and you have cast my sermons behind you. 18If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and you have placed your portion with adulterers. 19Your mouth has abounded with malice, and your tongue has concocted deceits. 20Sitting, you spoke against your brother, and you set up a scandal against your mother’s son. 21These things you have done, and I was silent. You thought, unjustly, that I ought to be like you. But I will reprove you, and I will set myself against your face. 22Understand these things, you who forget God; lest at any time, he might quickly take you away, and there would be no one to rescue you. 23The sacrifice of praise will honor me. And in that place is the journey by which I will reveal to him the salvation of God.

Gospel

Matthew 23:1-12

1Then Jesus spoke to the crowds, and to his disciples, 2saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have sat down in the chair of Moses. 3Therefore, all things whatsoever that they shall say to you, observe and do. Yet truly, do not choose to act according to their works. For they say, but they do not do. 4For they bind up heavy and unbearable burdens, and they impose them on men’s shoulders. But they are not willing to move them with even a finger of their own. 5Truly, they do all their works so that they may be seen by men. For they enlarge their phylacteries and glorify their hems. 6And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues, 7and greetings in the marketplace, and to be called Master by men. 8But you must not be called Master. For One is your Master, and you are all brothers. 9And do not choose to call anyone on earth your father. For One is your Father, who is in heaven. 10Neither should you be called teachers. For One is your Teacher, the Christ. 11Whoever is greater among you shall be your minister. 12But whoever has exalted himself, shall be humbled. And whoever has humbled himself, shall be exalted.