First Reading for Thursday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time (Cycle 2) - Daily Catholic Mass Reading

This word of the LORD came to me:
Go, cry out this message for Jerusalem to hear!
I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a bride,
Following me in the desert, in a land unsown.

Sacred to the LORD was Israel, the first fruits of his harvest;
Should any presume to partake of them, evil would befall them, says the LORD.

When I brought you into the garden land to eat its goodly fruits,
You entered and defiled my land, you made my heritage loathsome.

The priests asked not, “Where is the LORD?”
Those who dealt with the law knew me not: the shepherds rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,and went after useless idols.

Be amazed at this, O heavens, and shudder with sheer horror, says the LORD.
Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water.