---
title: "Job 38 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/job/38/
description: "God interposes and shews from the things he hath made, that man cannot comprehend… Job 38 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Job 38

Job 38 is chapter 38 of 42 in the Book of Job. Here are all 41 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> God interposes and shews from the things he hath made, that man cannot comprehend his power and wisdom.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Job 38 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. But the Lord, responding to Job from a whirlwind, said:
2. Who is this that wraps sentences in unskilled words?
3. Gird your waist like a man. I will question you, and you must answer me.
4. Where were you, when I set the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
5. Who set its measurements, if you know, or who stretched a line over it?
6. Upon what have its bases been grounded, and who set forth its cornerstone,
7. when the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful noise?
8. Who enclosed the sea with doors, when it broke forth as if issuing from the womb,
9. when I stationed a cloud as its garment and wrapped it in a mist as if swaddling an infant?
10. I encircled it with my limits, and I positioned its bars and doors.
11. And I said: “This far you will approach, and you will proceed no further, and here you will break your swelling waves.”
12. Did you, after your birth, command the birth of the sun and show the sunrise its place?
13. And did you hold the extremities of the earth, shaking them, and have you shaken the impious out of it?
14. The seal will be restored like clay, and it will remain in place like a garment.
15. From the impious, the light will be taken away, and the exalted arm will be broken.
16. Have you entered the depths of the sea, and have you taken a walk in the uttermost parts of the abyss?
17. Have the gates of death been opened to you, and have you seen the doors of darkness?
18. Have you considered the breadth of the earth? If you know all things, reveal them to me.
19. Which is the way that holds the light, and which is the place of darkness?
20. In this way, you might lead each thing to its final place, and understand the paths of its house.
21. So then, did you know when you were to be born? And did you know the number of your days?
22. Have you been admitted into the storehouses of the snows, and have you gazed upon the stockpile of the brimstone,
23. which I have prepared for the time of the enemy, for the day of the battle and the war?
24. In what way is the light scattered, and the heat distributed, over the earth?
25. Who gave a course to the rainstorms, and a path to the resounding thunder,
26. so that it would rain on the earth far from man, in the wilderness where no mortal lingers,
27. so that it would fill impassable and desolate places, and would bring forth green plants?
28. Who is the father of rain, or who conceived the drops of dew?
29. From whose womb did the ice proceed, and who created the frost from the air?
30. The waters are hardened to become like stone, and the surface of the abyss freezes over.
31. Will you have the strength to join together the sparkling stars of the Pleiades, or are you able to disperse the circling of Arcturus?
32. Can you bring forth the morning star, in its time, and make the evening star rise over the sons of the earth?
33. Do you know the order of heaven, and can you explain its rules here on the earth?
34. Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that an onslaught of waters will cover you?
35. Can you send forth lightning bolts, and will they go, and on returning, say to you: “Here we are?”
36. Who placed discernment in the guts of man, or who gave the rooster intelligence?
37. Who can describe the rules of the heavens, or who can put to rest the harmony of heaven?
38. When was the dust cast to become the earth, and when were its clods fastened together?
39. Will you seize prey for the lioness, and will you sustain the lives of her young,
40. as they rest in their dens or lie in wait in pits?
41. Who provides the raven with its meal, when her chicks cry out to God, as they wander around because they have no food?

## Job 38 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Respondens autem Dominus Job de turbine, dixit:
2. Quis est iste involvens sententias sermonibus imperitis?
3. Accinge sicut vir lumbos tuos: interrogabo te, et responde mihi.
4. Ubi eras quando ponebam fundamenta terræ? indica mihi, si habes intelligentiam.
5. Quis posuit mensuras ejus, si nosti? vel quis tetendit super eam lineam?
6. Super quo bases illius solidatæ sunt? aut quis demisit lapidem angularem ejus,
7. cum me laudarent simul astra matutina, et jubilarent omnes filii Dei?
8. Quis conclusit ostiis mare, quando erumpebat quasi de vulva procedens;
9. cum ponerem nubem vestimentum ejus, et caligine illud quasi pannis infantiæ obvolverem?
10. Circumdedi illud terminis meis, et posui vectem et ostia,
11. et dixi: Usque huc venies, et non procedes amplius, et hic confringes tumentes fluctus tuos.
12. Numquid post ortum tuum præcepisti diluculo, et ostendisti auroræ locum suum?
13. Et tenuisti concutiens extrema terræ, et excussisti impios ex ea?
14. Restituetur ut lutum signaculum, et stabit sicut vestimentum:
15. auferetur ab impiis lux sua, et brachium excelsum confringetur.
16. Numquid ingressus es profunda maris, et in novissimis abyssi deambulasti?
17. Numquid apertæ sunt tibi portæ mortis, et ostia tenebrosa vidisti?
18. Numquid considerasti latitudinem terræ? indica mihi, si nosti, omnia:
19. in qua via lux habitet, et tenebrarum quis locus sit:
20. ut ducas unumquodque ad terminos suos, et intelligas semitas domus ejus.
21. Sciebas tunc quod nasciturus esses, et numerum dierum tuorum noveras?
22. Numquid ingressus es thesauros nivis, aut thesauros grandinis aspexisti,
23. quæ præparavi in tempus hostis, in diem pugnæ et belli?
24. Per quam viam spargitur lux, dividitur æstus super terram?
25. Quis dedit vehementissimo imbri cursum, et viam sonantis tonitrui,
26. ut plueret super terram absque homine in deserto, ubi nullus mortalium commoratur;
27. ut impleret inviam et desolatam, et produceret herbas virentes?
28. Quis est pluviæ pater? vel quis genuit stillas roris?
29. De cujus utero egressa est glacies? et gelu de cælo quis genuit?
30. In similitudinem lapidis aquæ durantur, et superficies abyssi constringitur.
31. Numquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare?
32. Numquid producis luciferum in tempore suo, et vesperum super filios terræ consurgere facis?
33. Numquid nosti ordinem cæli, et pones rationem ejus in terra?
34. Numquid elevabis in nebula vocem tuam, et impetus aquarum operiet te?
35. Numquid mittes fulgura, et ibunt, et revertentia dicent tibi: Adsumus?
36. Quis posuit in visceribus hominis sapientiam? vel quis dedit gallo intelligentiam?
37. Quis enarrabit cælorum rationem? et concentum cæli quis dormire faciet?
38. Quando fundebatur pulvis in terra, et glebæ compingebantur?
39. Numquid capies leænæ prædam, et animam catulorum ejus implebis,
40. quando cubant in antris, et in specubus insidiantur?
41. Quis præparat corvo escam suam, quando pulli ejus clamant ad Deum, vagantes, eo quod non habeant cibos?

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- cf. CCC ¶ 332: Heaven and Earth ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 1: “The Lord” … That is, an angel speaking in the name of the Lord.
- Verse 31: “Pleiades” … Hebrew, Cimah. A cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus or the Bull. Arcturus, a bright star in the constellation Bootes. The Hebrew name Cesil, is variously interpreted; by some, Orion; by others, the Great Bear is understood.
- Verse 36: That instinct by which he distinguishes the times of crowing in the night.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sun, Jun 20, 2027 (computed): Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Job 38:1, 8-11
- Fri, Oct 6, 2028 (computed): Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5

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).