Jesus once said, echoing the prophet Isaiah (Is 24:13) "These people honour me with their lips but their heart is far from me" (Mt 18:8). Given his Jewish background, culture and education, it is not surprising that in his teaching and preaching, Jesus often echoed or even quoted the Bible. His use of Isaiah in the phrase quoted above is also a succinct summary of what Jeremiah has to say in the passage we read today.

How do we see a people's heart? Mostly by their words, actions, attitudes, especially in the contradictions, great and small, that we see in them. Chanting "The Temple of the Lord" may have seemed to many people to be a sincere and wondrous acclamation, recognizing not only the beautiful building of the Temple but also a reverent admission of the presence of God there. As a prophet, however, Jeremiah feels called upon to expose the damning contradiction between the proclamation and the many sins which frequently disfigured people's moral and religious lives.

Honesty in one's religious and spiritual life is generally a matter of constancy, consistency and integrity.