First Reading: Jeremiah 7:23-28

²³ But this command I gave them, `Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’
<sup>24</sup> But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.
<sup>25</sup> From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day;
<sup>26</sup> yet they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
<sup>27</sup> ”So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.
<sup>28</sup> And you shall say to them, `This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.