---
title: "Jonah 4 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/jonah/4/
description: "Jonah 4, all 11 verses, in the Catholic Public Domain Version with the Latin Vulgate, plus Bp. Challoner’s notes."
---

# Jonah 4

Jonah 4 is chapter 4 of 4 in the Book of Jonah. Here are all 11 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

## Jonah 4 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. And Jonah was afflicted with a great affliction, and he was angry.
2. And he prayed to the Lord, and he said, “I beg you, Lord, was this not my word, when I was still in my own land? Because of this, I knew beforehand to flee into Tarshish. For I know that you are a lenient and merciful God, patient and great in compassion, and forgiving despite ill will.
3. And now, Lord, I ask you to take my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live.”
4. And the Lord said, “Do you really think you are right to be angry?”
5. And Jonah went out of the city, and he sat opposite the east of the city. And he made himself a shelter there, and he was sitting under it in the shadow, until he might see what would befall the city.
6. And the Lord God prepared an ivy, and it ascended over the head of Jonah so as to be a shadow over his head, and to protect him (for he had labored hard). And Jonah rejoiced because of the ivy, with great rejoicing.
7. And God prepared a worm, when dawn approached on the next day, and it struck the ivy, and it dried up.
8. And when the sun had risen, the Lord ordered a hot and burning wind. And the sun beat down on the head of Jonah, and he burned. And he petitioned for his soul that he might die, and he said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
9. And the Lord said to Jonah, “Do you really think that you are right to be angry because of the ivy?” And he said, “I am right to be angry even unto death.”
10. And the Lord said, “You grieve for the ivy, for which you have not labored and which you did not cause to grow, though it had been born during one night, and during one night perished.
11. And shall I not spare Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand men, who do not know the difference between their right and their left, and many beasts?”

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

1. Et afflictus est Jonas afflictione magna, et iratus est:
2. et oravit ad Dominum, et dixit: Obsecro, Domine, numquid non hoc est verbum meum cum adhuc essem in terra mea? propter hoc præoccupavi ut fugerem in Tharsis: scio enim quia tu Deus clemens et misericors es, patiens et multæ miserationis, et ignoscens super malitia.
3. Et nunc, Domine, tolle, quæso, animam meam a me, quia melior est mihi mors quam vita.
4. Et dixit Dominus: Putasne bene irasceris tu?
5. Et egressus est Jonas de civitate, et sedit contra orientem civitatis: et fecit sibimet umbraculum ibi, et sedebat subter illud in umbra, donec videret quid accideret civitati.
6. Et præparavit Dominus Deus hederam, et ascendit super caput Jonæ, ut esset umbra super caput ejus, et protegeret eum (laboraverat enim): et lætatus est Jonas super hedera lætitia magna.
7. Et paravit Deus vermen ascensu diluculi in crastinum: et percussit hederam, et exaruit.
8. Et cum ortus fuisset sol, præcepit Dominus vento calido et urenti: et percussit sol super caput Jonæ, et æstuabat: et petivit animæ suæ ut moreretur, et dixit: Melius est mihi mori quam vivere.
9. Et dixit Dominus ad Jonam: Putasne bene irasceris tu super hedera? Et dixit: Bene irascor ego usque ad mortem.
10. Et dixit Dominus: Tu doles super hederam in qua non laborasti, neque fecisti ut cresceret; quæ sub una nocte nata est, et sub una nocte periit:
11. et ego non parcam Ninive, civitati magnæ, in qua sunt plus quam centum viginti millia hominum qui nesciunt quid sit inter dexteram et sinistram suam, et jumenta multa?

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 1: His concern was lest he should pass for a false prophet; or rather, lest God's word, by this occasion, might come to be slighted and disbelieved.
- Verse 6: “The Lord God prepared an ivy” … Hederam. In the Hebrew it is Kikajon, which some render a gourd: others a palmerist, or palma Christi.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Wed, Oct 6, 2027 (computed): Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Jonah 4:1-11

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).