---
title: "Galatians 4 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/galatians/4/
description: "Christ has freed us from the servitude of the law. We are the freeborn sons of… Galatians 4 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Galatians 4

Galatians 4 is chapter 4 of 6 in the Letter to the Galatians. Here are all 31 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Christ has freed us from the servitude of the law. We are the freeborn sons of Abraham.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Galatians 4 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. But I say that, during the time an heir is a child, he is no different from a servant, even though he is the owner of everything.
2. For he is under tutors and caretakers, until the time which was predetermined by the father.
3. So also we, when we were children, were subservient to the influences of the world.
4. But when the fullness of time arrived, God sent his Son, formed from a woman, formed under the law,
5. so that he might redeem those who were under the law, in order that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6. Therefore, because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out: “Abba, Father.”
7. And so now he is not a servant, but a son. But if he is a son, then he is also an heir, through God.
8. But then, certainly, while ignorant of God, you served those who, by nature, are not gods.
9. But now, since you have known God, or rather, since you have been known by God: how can you turn away again, to weak and destitute influences, which you desire to serve anew?
10. You serve the days, and months, and times, and years.
11. I am afraid for you, lest perhaps I may have labored in vain among you.
12. Brothers, I beg you. Be as I am. For I, too, am like you. You have not injured me at all.
13. But you know that, in the weakness of the flesh, I have preached the Gospel to you for a long time, and that your trials are in my flesh.
14. You did not despise or reject me. But instead, you accepted me like an Angel of God, even like Christ Jesus.
15. Therefore, where is your happiness? For I offer to you testimony that, if it could be done, you would have plucked out your own eyes and would have given them to me.
16. So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
17. They are not imitating you well. And they are willing to exclude you, so that you might imitate them.
18. But be imitators of what is good, always in a good way, and not only when I am present with you.
19. My little sons, I am giving birth to you again, until Christ is formed in you.
20. And I would willingly be present with you, even now. But I would alter my voice: for I am ashamed of you.
21. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, have you not read the law?
22. For it is written that Abraham had two sons: one by a servant woman, and one by a free woman.
23. And he who was of the servant was born according to the flesh. But he who was of the free woman was born by the promise.
24. These things are said through an allegory. For these represent the two testaments. Certainly the one, on Mount Sinai, gives birth unto servitude, which is Hagar.
25. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is related to the Jerusalem of the present time, and it serves with her sons.
26. But that Jerusalem which is above is free; the same is our mother.
27. For it was written: “Rejoice, O barren one, though you do not conceive. Burst forth and cry out, though you do not give birth. For many are the children of the desolate, even more than of her who has a husband.”
28. Now we, brothers, like Isaac, are sons of the promise.
29. But just as then, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.
30. And what does Scripture say? “Cast out the woman servant and her son. For the son of a servant women shall not be an heir with the son of a free woman.”
31. And so, brothers, we are not the sons of the servant woman, but rather of the free woman. And this is the freedom with which Christ has set us free.

## Galatians 4 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Dico autem: quanto tempore hæres parvulus est, nihil differt a servo, cum sit dominus omnium:
2. sed sub tutoribus et actoribus est usque ad præfinitum tempus a patre:
3. ita et nos cum essemus parvuli, sub elementis mundi eramus servientes.
4. At ubi venit plenitudo temporis, misit Deus Filium suum factum ex muliere, factum sub lege,
5. ut eos, qui sub lege erant, redimeret, ut adoptionem filiorum reciperemus.
6. Quoniam autem estis filii, misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda vestra, clamantem: Abba, Pater.
7. Itaque jam non est servus, sed filius: quod si filius, et hæres per Deum.
8. Sed tunc quidem ignorantes Deum, iis, qui natura non sunt dii, serviebatis.
9. Nunc autem cum cognoveritis Deum, immo cogniti sitis a Deo: quomodo convertimini iterum ad infirma et egena elementa, quibus denuo servire vultis?
10. Dies observatis, et menses, et tempora, et annos.
11. Timeo vos, ne forte sine causa laboraverim in vobis.
12. Estote sicut ego, quia et ego sicut vos: fratres, obsecro vos. Nihil me læsistis.
13. Scitis autem quia per infirmitatem carnis evangelizavi vobis jampridem: et tentationem vestram in carne mea
14. non sprevistis, neque respuistis: sed sicut angelum Dei excepistis me, sicut Christum Jesum.
15. Ubi est ergo beatitudo vestra? testimonium enim perhibeo vobis, quia, si fieri posset, oculos vestros eruissetis, et dedissetis mihi.
16. Ergo inimicus vobis factus sum, verum dicens vobis?
17. Æmulantur vos non bene: sed excludere vos volunt, ut illos æmulemini.
18. Bonum autem æmulamini in bono semper: et non tantum cum præsens sum apud vos.
19. Filioli mei, quos iterum parturio, donec formetur Christus in vobis:
20. vellem autem esse apud vos modo, et mutare vocem meam: quoniam confundor in vobis.
21. Dicite mihi qui sub lege vultis esse: legem non legistis?
22. Scriptum est enim: Quoniam Abraham duos filios habuit: unum de ancilla, et unum de libera.
23. Sed qui de ancilla, secundum carnem natus est: qui autem de libera, per repromissionem:
24. quæ sunt per allegoriam dicta. Hæc enim sunt duo testamenta. Unum quidem in monte Sina, in servitutem generans, quæ est Agar:
25. Sina enim mons est in Arabia, qui conjunctus est ei quæ nunc est Jerusalem, et servit cum filiis suis.
26. Illa autem, quæ sursum est Jerusalem, libera est, quæ est mater nostra.
27. Scriptum est enim: Lætare, sterilis, quæ non paris; erumpe et clama, quæ non parturis: quia multi filii desertæ, magis quam ejus quæ habet virum.
28. Nos autem, fratres, secundum Isaac promissionis filii sumus.
29. Sed quomodo tunc is, qui secundum carnem natus fuerat, persequebatur eum qui secundum spiritum: ita et nunc.
30. Sed quid dicit Scriptura? Ejice ancillam, et filium ejus: non enim hæres erit filius ancillæ cum filio liberæ.
31. Itaque, fratres, non sumus ancillæ filii, sed liberæ: qua libertate Christus nos liberavit.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 1972: The New Law or the Law of the Gospel ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 422: I Believe in Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 484: "Conceived By the Power of the Holy Spirit and Born of the Virgin Mary" ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 488: "Conceived By the Power of the Holy Spirit and Born of the Virgin Mary" ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 702: God's Spirit and Word in the Time of the Promises ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 527: The Mysteries of Christ's Life ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 531: The Mysteries of Christ's Life ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 580: Jesus and Israel ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 1265: The Grace of Baptism ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 683: I Believe in the Holy Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 693: The Name, Titles, and Symbols of the Holy Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 2766: The Lord's Prayer ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 689: The Joint Mission of the Son and the Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 1695: Life in Christ ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 2777: "We Dare To Say" ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 793: The Church - People of God, Body of Christ, Temple of the Holy Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 526: The Mysteries of Christ's Life ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 723: The Spirit of Christ in the Fullness of Time ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 757: The Church in God's Plan ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## The saints

- “He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother.” — St. Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, 6, 251 (On this theme: verse 26)

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 3: That is, under the first rudiments of religion, in which the carnal Jews were trained up; or under those corporeal creatures, used in their manifold rites, sacrifices, and sacraments.
- Verse 10: He speaks not of the observation of the Lord's day, or other Christian festivals; but either of the superstitious observation of days lucky and unlucky; or else of the Jewish festivals, to the observance of which, certain Jewish teachers sought to induce the Galatians.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Fri, Jan 1, 2027: Mary, the Holy Mother of God — Second Reading, Galatians 4:4-7
- Sat, Jan 1, 2028 (computed): Mary, the Holy Mother of God — Second Reading, Galatians 4:4-7
- Mon, Oct 16, 2028 (computed): Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Galatians 4:22-24, 26-27, 31—5:1

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