---
title: "Job 20 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/job/20/
description: "Sophar declares the shortness of the prosperity of the wicked: and their sudden… Job 20 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Job 20

Job 20 is chapter 20 of 42 in the Book of Job. Here are all 29 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Sophar declares the shortness of the prosperity of the wicked: and their sudden downfall.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Job 20 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. Then Zophar the Naamathite answered by saying:
2. In response, various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind moves quickly through different ideas.
3. The teaching you use to admonish me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding will respond for me.
4. This, I know, is from the beginning, from the time that man was set over the earth:
5. that the praise of the impious shall be short, and the joy of the hypocrite lasts only a moment.
6. If his pride ascends even towards the heavens, and his head touches the clouds,
7. in the end, he will be destroyed like a trash heap, and those who had seen him will say: “Where is he?”
8. Like a dream that flies away, he will not be found; he will pass away like a nightmare.
9. The eyes that had seen him, will not see him; no longer will his own place admire him.
10. His sons will be worn away by poverty, and his own hands will deliver his grief to him.
11. His bones will be filled with the vices of his youth, and they will sleep with him in the dust.
12. For, when evil will be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue.
13. He will permit it, and not abandon it, and he will conceal it in his throat.
14. His bread in his belly will be turned into the venom of snakes within him.
15. The riches that he devours, he will vomit up, and from his stomach God will draw them out.
16. He will suck the head of snakes, and the tongue of the viper will kill him.
17. (May he never see the streams of the river, the torrents of honey and butter.)
18. He will be repaid for all he has done, yet he will not be consumed; according to the multitude of his schemes, so also will he suffer.
19. For, having broken in, he stripped the poor. He has quickly stolen away a house he did not build.
20. And yet his stomach will not be satisfied, and when he has the things he desires, he will not be able to possess them.
21. Nothing remained of his portion, and, because of this, nothing will continue of his kind.
22. When he will be satisfied, he will be constrained; he will seethe, and all anguish will fall upon him.
23. May his stomach be filled, so that God may send forth the fury of his wrath to him and may rain down his battle upon him.
24. He will flee from weapons of iron, and he will fall in an arc of brass,
25. which had been drawn and had issued forth from its sheath, glittering in its bitterness: the horrible ones will go forth and approach over him.
26. All darkness has been hidden in his secrecy. A fire that has not been set will devour him; he will be thrown down and forsaken in his tabernacle.
27. The heavens will reveal his sinfulness, and the earth will rise up against him.
28. The offspring of his house will be exposed; he will be pulled down in the day of God’s wrath.
29. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his words from the Lord.

## Job 20 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Respondens autem Sophar Naamathites, dixit:
2. Idcirco cogitationes meæ variæ succedunt sibi, et mens in diversa rapitur.
3. Doctrinam qua me arguis audiam, et spiritus intelligentiæ meæ respondebit mihi.
4. Hoc scio a principio, ex quo positus est homo super terram,
5. quod laus impiorum brevis sit, et gaudium hypocritæ ad instar puncti.
6. Si ascenderit usque ad cælum superbia ejus, et caput ejus nubes tetigerit,
7. quasi sterquilinium in fine perdetur, et qui eum viderant, dicent: Ubi est?
8. Velut somnium avolans non invenietur: transiet sicut visio nocturna.
9. Oculus qui eum viderat non videbit, neque ultra intuebitur eum locus suus.
10. Filii ejus atterentur egestate, et manus illius reddent ei dolorem suum.
11. Ossa ejus implebuntur vitiis adolescentiæ ejus, et cum eo in pulvere dormient.
12. Cum enim dulce fuerit in ore ejus malum, abscondet illud sub lingua sua.
13. Parcet illi, et non derelinquet illud, et celabit in gutture suo.
14. Panis ejus in utero illius vertetur in fel aspidum intrinsecus.
15. Divitias quas devoravit evomet, et de ventre illius extrahet eas Deus.
16. Caput aspidum suget, et occidet eum lingua viperæ.
17. (Non videat rivulos fluminis, torrentes mellis et butyri.)
18. Luet quæ fecit omnia, nec tamen consumetur: juxta multitudinem adinventionum suarum, sic et sustinebit.
19. Quoniam confringens nudavit pauperes: domum rapuit, et non ædificavit eam.
20. Nec est satiatus venter ejus: et cum habuerit quæ concupierat, possidere non poterit.
21. Non remansit de cibo ejus, et propterea nihil permanebit de bonis ejus.
22. Cum satiatus fuerit, arctabitur: æstuabit, et omnis dolor irruet super eum.
23. Utinam impleatur venter ejus, ut emittat in eum iram furoris sui, et pluat super illum bellum suum.
24. Fugiet arma ferrea, et irruet in arcum æreum.
25. Eductus, et egrediens de vagina sua, et fulgurans in amaritudine sua: vadent et venient super eum horribiles.
26. Omnes tenebræ absconditæ sunt in occultis ejus; devorabit eum ignis qui non succenditur: affligetur relictus in tabernaculo suo.
27. Revelabunt cæli iniquitatem ejus, et terra consurget adversus eum.
28. Apertum erit germen domus illius: detrahetur in die furoris Dei.
29. Hæc est pars hominis impii a Deo, et hæreditas verborum ejus a Domino.

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 18: That is, his stratagems to gratify his passions and to oppress and destroy the poor.

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