---
title: "Deuteronomy 18 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/deuteronomy/18/
description: "The Lord is the inheritance of the priests and Levites. Heathenish… Deuteronomy 18 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Deuteronomy 18

Deuteronomy 18 is chapter 18 of 34 in the Book of Deuteronomy. Here are all 22 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> The Lord is the inheritance of the priests and Levites. Heathenish abominations are to be avoided. The great PROPHET CHRIST is promised. False prophets must be slain.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Deuteronomy 18 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. “The priests and the Levites, and all who are from the same tribe, shall have no portion or inheritance with the rest of Israel. For they shall eat the sacrifices of the Lord and his oblations.
2. And they shall receive nothing else from the possession of their brothers. For the Lord himself is their inheritance, just as he said to them.
3. This shall be the recompense for the priests from the people, and from those who offer victims, whether they will immolate an ox or a sheep. They shall give to the priest the shoulder and the breast,
4. the first-fruits of grain, wine, and oil, and a portion of the wool from the shearing of the sheep.
5. For the Lord your God himself has chosen him out of all your tribes, so that he may stand and minister to the name of the Lord, him and his sons, forever.
6. If a Levite departs from one of the cities, throughout all of Israel, in which he lives, and if he wills and desires to go to the place which the Lord will choose,
7. he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as do all his brothers, the Levites, who will be standing at that time in the sight of the Lord.
8. He shall receive the same portion of food as the rest also receive, besides that which is due to him in his own city, by succession from his fathers.
9. When you will have entered into the land which the Lord your God will give to you, be careful that you are not willing to imitate the abominations of those nations.
10. Do not let there be found among you one who would purify his son or daughter by leading them through fire, nor one who consults seers, nor one who observes dreams or omens. Do not let there be found among you one who practices the occult,
11. nor one who uses spells, nor one who consults demonic spirits, nor a diviner, nor one who seeks the truth from the dead.
12. For the Lord abominates all these things. And, because of these wicked ways, he will destroy them at your arrival.
13. You shall be perfect and without blemish with the Lord your God.
14. These nations, whose land you shall possess, they listen to soothsayers and diviners. But you have been otherwise instructed by the Lord your God.
15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a PROPHET from your nation and from your brothers, similar to me. You shall listen to him,
16. just as you petitioned of the Lord your God at Horeb, when the assembly was gathered together, and you said: ‘Let me no longer hear the voice of the Lord my God, and let me no longer see this very great fire, lest I die.’
17. And the Lord said to me: ‘They have spoken all these things well.
18. I will raise up a prophet for them, from the midst of their brothers, similar to you. And I will place my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all the things that I will instruct him.
19. But against anyone who is not willing to listen to his words, which he will speak in my name, I will stand forth as the avenger.
20. But if a prophet, having been corrupted by arrogance, chooses to speak, in my name, things which I did not instruct him to say, or to speak in the name of foreign gods, he shall be put to death.
21. But if, in silent thought, you respond: “How will I be able to recognize a word which the Lord has not spoken?”
22. you shall have this sign. If whatever that prophet predicts in the name of the Lord does not happen, then the Lord has not spoken it. Instead, the prophet has formed it through the swelling of his own mind. And for this reason, you shall not fear him.’”

## Deuteronomy 18 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Non habebunt sacerdotes et Levitæ, et omnes qui de eadem tribu sunt, partem et hæreditatem cum reliquo Israël, quia sacrificia Domini, et oblationes ejus comedent,
2. et nihil aliud accipient de possessione fratrum suorum: Dominus enim ipse est hæreditas eorum, sicut locutus est illis.
3. Hoc erit judicium sacerdotum a populo, et ab his qui offerunt victimas: sive bovem, sive ovem immolaverint, dabunt sacerdoti armum ac ventriculum:
4. primitias frumenti, vini, et olei, et lanarum partem ex ovium tonsione.
5. Ipsum enim elegit Dominus Deus tuus de cunctis tribubus tuis, ut stet, et ministret nomini Domini, ipse, et filii ejus in sempiternum.
6. Si exierit Levites ex una urbium tuarum ex omni Israël in qua habitat, et voluerit venire, desiderans locum quem elegerit Dominus,
7. ministrabit in nomine Domini Dei sui, sicut omnes fratres ejus Levitæ, qui stabunt eo tempore coram Domino.
8. Partem ciborum eamdem accipiet, quam et ceteri: excepto eo, quod in urbe sua ex paterna ei successione debetur.
9. Quando ingressus fueris terram, quam Dominus Deus tuus dabit tibi, cave ne imitari velis abominationes illarum gentium.
10. Nec inveniatur in te qui lustret filium suum, aut filiam, ducens per ignem: aut qui ariolos sciscitetur, et observet somnia atque auguria, nec sit maleficus,
11. nec incantator, nec qui pythones consulat, nec divinos, aut quærat a mortuis veritatem.
12. Omnia enim hæc abominatur Dominus, et propter istiusmodi scelera delebit eos in introitu tuo.
13. Perfectus eris, et absque macula cum Domino Deo tuo.
14. Gentes istæ, quarum possidebis terram, augures et divinos audiunt: tu autem a Domino Deo tuo aliter institutus es.
15. Prophetam de gente tua et de fratribus tuis, sicut me, suscitabit tibi Dominus Deus tuus: ipsum audies,
16. ut petisti a Domino Deo tuo in Horeb, quando concio congregata est, atque dixisti: Ultra non audiam vocem Domini Dei mei, et ignem hunc maximum amplius non videbo, ne moriar.
17. Et ait Dominus mihi: Bene omnia sunt locuti.
18. Prophetam suscitabo eis de medio fratrum suorum similem tui: et ponam verba mea in ore ejus, loqueturque ad eos omnia quæ præcepero illi.
19. Qui autem verba ejus, quæ loquetur in nomine meo, audire noluerit, ego ultor existam.
20. Propheta autem qui arrogantia depravatus voluerit loqui in nomine meo, quæ ego non præcepi illi ut diceret, aut ex nomine alienorum deorum, interficietur.
21. Quod si tacita cogitatione responderis: Quomodo possum intelligere verbum, quod Dominus non est locutus?
22. hoc habebis signum: quod in nomine Domini propheta ille prædixerit, et non evenerit: hoc Dominus non est locutus, sed per tumorem animi sui propheta confinxit: et idcirco non timebis eum.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- cf. CCC ¶ 2116: "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sun, Jan 31, 2027: Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Citations as published in the USCCB liturgical calendar (principal Mass, first option).

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