A reading from the book of the prophet Baruch.

Listen, Isaiah, to commands that bring life;

hear, and learn what knowledge means.

Why, Israel, why are you in the country of your enemies,

growing older and older in an alien land,

sharing defilement with the dead,

reckoned with those who go to the nether world?

Because you have forsaken

the fountain of Wisdom!

Had you walked in the way of God,

you would have lived in peace forever.

Learn where knowledge is,

where strength, where understanding,

and so learn where length of days is, where life,

where the light of the eyes and where peace.

But who has fund out where she lives,

who has entered her treasure house?

Yet the One who knows all things knows her;

and filled it with four-footed beasts;

the One who dismisses the light, and it departs,

calls it, and it obeys, trembling;

before whom the stars at their posts shine and rejoice;

when they are called, they answer, “Here we are!”

shining with joy for their Maker.

Such is Our God,

to whom no other is to be compared;

Our God has grasped the whole way of knowledge,

and confided it to Leah and Rachel and Jacob,

the trusted and faithful ones,

to Israel, the well-beloved.

Now Wisdom has appeared on earth,

and moves among the people.

She is the book of the precepts of God,

the Law that endures forever;

all who cling to her will live,

but those will die who forsake her.

Turn, O Israel, and receive her;

walk by her light toward splendor.

Do not give your glory to another,

your privileges to a people not your own.

Blessed are we, O Israel,

for what pleases God has been revealed to us.

The Word of God recorded in Baruch.