---
title: "Habakkuk 2 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/habakkuk/2/
description: "The prophet is admonished to wait with faith. The enemies of God's people shall… Habakkuk 2 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Habakkuk 2

Habakkuk 2 is chapter 2 of 3 in the Book of Habakkuk. Here are all 20 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> The prophet is admonished to wait with faith. The enemies of God's people shall assuredly be punished.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Habakkuk 2 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. I will stand firm during my watch, and fix my position over the fortification. And I will observe carefully, to see what might be said to me and what I might respond to my opponent.
2. And the Lord responded to me and said: Write the vision and explain it on tablets, so that he who reads it may run through it.
3. For as yet the vision is far off, and it will appear in the end, and it will not lie. If it expresses any delay, wait for it. For it is arriving and it will arrive, and it will not be hindered.
4. Behold, he who is unbelieving, his soul will not be right within himself; but he who is just shall live in his faith.
5. And in the manner that wine deceives the heavy drinker, so will the arrogant man be deceived, and he will not be honored. He has enlarged his life like hellfire, and himself like death, and he is never fulfilled. And he will gather to himself all nations, and he will amass for himself all peoples.
6. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and an enigmatic utterance about him? And it will be said, “Woe to him who increases what is not his own.” How long, then, will he lay down dense clay against himself?
7. Shall they not suddenly rise up, who would bite you, and be stirred up, who would tear you, so that you will be a prey for them?
8. Because you have despoiled many peoples, all those who are left of the people shall despoil you, because of the blood of men, and the iniquity of the earth, of the city and all who dwell therein.
9. Woe to him who gathers together an evil greed for his house, so that his nest may be exalted, and thinking that he might free himself from the hand of evil.
10. You have devised confusion for your house, you have cut to pieces many peoples, and your soul has sinned.
11. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the wood that is between the joints of the building will respond.
12. Woe to him who builds a town with blood and prepares a city by iniquity.
13. Are not these things before the Lord of hosts? For the people will labor amid a great fire, and the nations will labor in emptiness, and they will fail.
14. For the earth shall be filled, that they might know the glory of the Lord, like the waters spreading over the sea.
15. Woe to anyone who gives a drink to a friend, releasing a drug and inebriating, so as to look upon their nakedness.
16. You are filled with disgrace in place of glory. So then, drink and fall fast asleep, for the cup of the right hand of the Lord will surround you, and a disgraceful vomit will cover your glory.
17. For the iniquity of Lebanon will cover you, and the devastation of animals which will deter them from the blood of men, and the iniquity of the earth and the city, and of all who dwell therein.
18. Of what benefit is the graven image? For its maker has formed it, a molten and imaginary deception. For its maker has hoped in a figment of his own creation, so as to make a dumb likeness.
19. Woe to him who says to wood, “Awaken,” to the silent stone, “Arise.” Is it able to teach? Behold, it has been entirely covered with gold and silver; and there is no spirit at all in its inner workings.
20. But the Lord is in his holy temple. May all the earth be silent before his face.

## Habakkuk 2 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Super custodiam meam stabo, et figam gradum super munitionem: et contemplabor ut videam quid dicatur mihi, et quid respondeam ad arguentem me.
2. Et respondit mihi Dominus, et dixit: Scribe visum, et explana eum super tabulas, ut percurrat qui legerit eum.
3. Quia adhuc visus procul; et apparebit in finem, et non mentietur: si moram fecerit, exspecta illum, quia veniens veniet, et non tardabit.
4. Ecce qui incredulus est, non erit recta anima ejus in semetipso; justus autem in fide sua vivet.
5. Et quomodo vinum potantem decipit, sic erit vir superbus, et non decorabitur: qui dilatavit quasi infernus animam suam, et ipse quasi mors, et non adimpletur: et congregabit ad se omnes gentes, et coacervabit ad se omnes populos.
6. Numquid non omnes isti super eum parabolam sument, et loquelam ænigmatum ejus, et dicetur: Væ ei qui multiplicat non sua? usquequo et aggravat contra se densum lutum?
7. Numquid non repente consurgent qui mordeant te, et suscitabuntur lacerantes te, et eris in rapinam eis?
8. Quia tu spoliasti gentes multas, spoliabunt te omnes qui reliqui fuerint de populis, propter sanguinem hominis, et iniquitatem terræ, civitatis, et omnium habitantium in ea.
9. Væ qui congregat avaritiam malam domui suæ, ut sit in excelso nidus ejus, et liberari se putat de manu mali!
10. Cogitasti confusionem domui tuæ; concidisti populos multos, et peccavit anima tua.
11. Quia lapis de pariete clamabit, et lignum, quod inter juncturas ædificiorum est, respondebit.
12. Væ qui ædificat civitatem in sanguinibus, et præparat urbem in iniquitate!
13. Numquid non hæc sunt a Domino exercituum? laborabunt enim populi in multo igne, et gentes in vacuum, et deficient.
14. Quia replebitur terra, ut cognoscant gloriam Domini, quasi aquæ operientes mare.
15. Væ qui potum dat amico suo mittens fel suum, et inebrians ut aspiciat nuditatem ejus!
16. Repletus es ignominia pro gloria; bibe tu quoque, et consopire. Circumdabit te calix dexteræ Domini, et vomitus ignominiæ super gloriam tuam.
17. Quia iniquitas Libani operiet te, et vastitas animalium deterrebit eos de sanguinibus hominum, et iniquitate terræ, et civitatis, et omnium habitantium in ea.
18. Quid prodest sculptile, quia sculpsit illud fictor suus, conflatile, et imaginem falsam? quia speravit in figmento fictor ejus, ut faceret simulacra muta.
19. Væ qui dicit ligno: Expergiscere; Surge, lapidi tacenti! Numquid ipse docere poterit? ecce iste coopertus est auro et argento, et omnis spiritus non est in visceribus ejus.
20. Dominus autem in templo sancto suo: sileat a facie ejus omnis terra!

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 1: “Will stand” … Waiting to see what the Lord will answer to my complaint, viz., that the Chaldeans, who are worse than the Jews, and who attribute all their success to their own strength, or to their idols, should nevertheless prevail over the people of the Lord. The Lord's answer is, that the prophet must wait with patience and faith: that all should be set right in due time; and the enemies of God and his people punished according to their deserts.
- Verse 5: Viz., by affording only a short passing pleasure; followed by the evils and disgrace that are the usual consequences of drunkenness; so shall it be with the proud enemies of the people of God; whose success affordeth them only a momentary pleasure, followed by innumerable and everlasting evils.
- Verse 6: Ill-gotten goods, that, like mire, both burden and defile the soul.
- Verse 13: “Are not these things” … That is, shall not these punishments that are here recorded, come from the Lord upon him that is guilty of such crimes.-- Ibid.
- Verse 13: Viz., the enemies of God's people.
- Verse 17: That is, the iniquity committed by the Chaldeans against the temple of God, signified here by the name of Libanus.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sat, Aug 12, 2028 (computed): Saturday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Habakkuk 1:12—2:4
- Sun, Oct 8, 2028 (computed): Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4

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).