Criticism

First Reading Isaiah 48:17-19 17Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. 18O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; 19your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me." Responsorial Psalm Psalms 1:1-4, 6 1Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away. 6for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Gospel Matthew 11:16-19 16"But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, 17`We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.' 18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon'; 19the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds."