---
title: "1 Corinthians 4 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/4/
description: "God's ministers are not to be judged. He reprehends their boasting of… 1 Corinthians 4 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# 1 Corinthians 4

1 Corinthians 4 is chapter 4 of 16 in the First Letter to the Corinthians. Here are all 21 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> God's ministers are not to be judged. He reprehends their boasting of their preachers and describes the treatment the apostles every where met with.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## 1 Corinthians 4 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. Accordingly, let man consider us to be ministers of Christ and attendants of the mysteries of God.
2. Here and now, it is required of attendants that each one be found to be faithful.
3. But as for me, it is such a small thing to be judged by you, or by the age of mankind. And neither do I judge myself.
4. For I have nothing on my conscience. But I am not justified by this. For the Lord is the One who judges me.
5. And so, do not choose to judge before the time, until the Lord returns. He will illuminate the hidden things of the darkness, and he will make manifest the decisions of hearts. And then each one shall have praise from God.
6. And so, brothers, I have presented these things in myself and in Apollo, for your sakes, so that you may learn, through us, that no one should be inflated against one person and for another, not beyond what has been written.
7. For what distinguishes you from another? And what do you have that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it?
8. So, now you have been filled, and now you have been made wealthy, as if to reign without us? But I wish that you would reign, so that we, too, might reign with you!
9. For I think that God has presented us as the last Apostles, as those destined for death. For we have been made into a spectacle for the world, and for Angels, and for men.
10. So we are fools because of Christ, but you are discerning in Christ? We are weak, but you are strong? You are noble, but we are ignoble?
11. Even to this very hour, we hunger and thirst, and we are naked and repeatedly beaten, and we are unsteady.
12. And we labor, working with our own hands. We are slandered, and so we bless. We suffer and endure persecution.
13. We are cursed, and so we pray. We have become like the refuse of this world, like the reside of everything, even until now.
14. I am not writing these things in order to confound you, but in order to admonish you, as my dearest sons.
15. For you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, but not so many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, through the Gospel, I have begotten you.
16. Therefore, I beg you, be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ.
17. For this reason, I have sent you Timothy, who is my dearest son, and who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere, in every church.
18. Certain persons have become inflated in thinking that I would not return to you.
19. But I will return to you soon, if the Lord is willing. And I will consider, not the words of those who are inflated, but the virtue.
20. For the kingdom of God is not in words, but in virtue.
21. What would you prefer? Should I return to you with a rod, or with charity and a spirit of meekness?

## 1 Corinthians 4 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Sic nos existimet homo ut ministros Christi, et dispensatores mysteriorum Dei.
2. Hic jam quæritur inter dispensatores ut fidelis quis inveniatur.
3. Mihi autem pro minimo est ut a vobis judicer, aut ab humano die: sed neque meipsum judico.
4. Nihil enim mihi conscius sum, sed non in hoc justificatus sum: qui autem judicat me, Dominus est.
5. Itaque nolite ante tempus judicare, quoadusque veniat Dominus: qui et illuminabit abscondita tenebrarum, et manifestabit consilia cordium: et tunc laus erit unicuique a Deo.
6. Hæc autem, fratres, transfiguravi in me et Apollo, propter vos: ut in nobis discatis, ne supra quam scriptum est, unus adversus alterum infletur pro alio.
7. Quis enim te discernit? quid autem habes quod non accepisti? si autem accepisti, quid gloriaris quasi non acceperis?
8. Jam saturati estis, jam divites facti estis: sine nobis regnatis: et utinam regnetis, ut et nos vobiscum regnemus.
9. Puto enim quod Deus nos Apostolos novissimos ostendit, tamquam morti destinatos: quia spectaculum facti sumus mundo, et angelis, et hominibus.
10. Nos stulti propter Christum, vos autem prudentes in Christo: nos infirmi, vos autem fortes: vos nobiles, nos autem ignobiles.
11. Usque in hanc horam et esurimus, et sitimus, et nudi sumus, et colaphis cædimur, et instabiles sumus,
12. et laboramus operantes manibus nostris: maledicimur, et benedicimus: persecutionem patimur, et sustinemus:
13. blasphemamur, et obsecramus: tamquam purgamenta hujus mundi facti sumus, omnium peripsema usque adhuc.
14. Non ut confundam vos, hæc scribo, sed ut filios meos carissimos moneo.
15. Nam si decem millia pædagogorum habeatis in Christo, sed non multos patres. Nam in Christo Jesu per Evangelium ego vos genui.
16. Rogo ergo vos, imitatores mei estote, sicut et ego Christi.
17. Ideo misi ad vos Timotheum, qui est filius meus carissimus, et fidelis in Domino: qui vos commonefaciet vias meas, quæ sunt in Christo Jesu, sicut ubique in omni ecclesia doceo.
18. Tamquam non venturus sim ad vos, sic inflati sunt quidam.
19. Veniam autem ad vos cito, si Dominus voluerit: et cognoscam non sermonem eorum qui inflati sunt, sed virtutem.
20. Non enim in sermone est regnum Dei, sed in virtute.
21. Quid vultis? in virga veniam ad vos, an in caritate, et spiritu mansuetudinis?

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 859: The Church Is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1117: The Sacraments of the Church ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 678: To Judge the Living and the Dead ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sat, Sep 9, 2028 (computed): St. Peter Claver, Priest — First Reading, 1 Corinthians 4:6b-15

Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).