Monday of the 17th week of Ordinary Time

1Thus says the Lord to me: “Go, and obtain for yourself a linen waistcloth. And you shall place it over your loins, and you shall not put it into water.” 2And so I obtained a waistcloth, according to the word of the Lord, and I placed it around my loins. 3And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying: 4“Take the waistcloth, which you obtained, which is around your loins, and, rising up, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in an opening of the rock.” 5And so I went, and I hid it by the Euphrates, just as the Lord had instructed me. 6And it happened that, after many days, the Lord said to me: “Rise up, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the waistcloth, which I instructed you to hide there.” 7And so I went to the Euphrates, and I dug up and took the waistcloth from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the waistcloth had rotted, so that it was not fit for any use. 8And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 9“Thus says the Lord: In the same way, I will cause the arrogance of Judah and the arrogance of Jerusalem to rot. 10This most wicked people, they are not willing to listen to my words, for they walk in the depravity of their own heart, and they have gone after strange gods, so as to serve them and to adore them. And so, they will become like this waistcloth, which is not fit for any use. 11For just as the waistcloth clings to the loins of a man, so have I brought close to me the entire house of Israel and the entire house of Judah, says the Lord, so that they would be to me: a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory. But they did not listen.

18You have forsaken the God who conceived you, and you have forgotten the Lord who created you.

19The Lord saw, and he was stirred to anger. For his own sons and daughters provoked him.

20And he said: ‘I will hide my face from them, and I will consider their very end. For this is a perverse generation, and they are unfaithful sons.

21They have provoked me with that which was not God, and they have angered me with their emptiness. And so, I will provoke them with that which is not a people, and I will anger them with a foolish nation.

31He proposed another parable to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. 32It is, indeed, the least of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is greater than all the plants, and it becomes a tree, so much so that the birds of the air come and dwell in its branches.” 33He spoke another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of fine wheat flour, until it was entirely leavened.” 34All these things Jesus spoke in parables to the crowds. And he did not speak to them apart from parables, 35in order to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, saying: “I will open my mouth in parables. I will proclaim what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”