---
title: "Numbers 12 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/numbers/12/
description: "Mary and Aaron murmur against Moses, whom God praiseth above other prophets.… Numbers 12 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Numbers 12

Numbers 12 is chapter 12 of 36 in the Book of Numbers. Here are all 15 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Mary and Aaron murmur against Moses, whom God praiseth above other prophets. Mary being struck with leprosy, Aaron confesseth his fault. Moses prayeth for her, and after seven days' separation from the camp, she is restored.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Numbers 12 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses, because of his wife, an Ethiopian,
2. and they said: “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken similarly to us?” And when the Lord had heard this,
3. (for Moses was a man exceedingly meek, beyond all the men who were living upon the earth)
4. immediately he spoke to him, and to Aaron and Miriam, “Go out, you three only, to the tabernacle of the covenant.” And when they had gone out,
5. the Lord descended in a column of cloud, and he stood at the entrance of the tabernacle, calling to Aaron and Miriam. And when they had advanced,
6. he said to them: “Listen to my words. If there will be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him through a dream.
7. But it is not so with my servant Moses, who is the most faithful in all my house.
8. For I speak with him mouth to mouth, and plainly. And not through enigmas and figures does he perceive the Lord. Therefore, why were you not afraid to disparage my servant Moses?”
9. And being angry against them, he went away.
10. Likewise, the cloud which was over the tabernacle withdrew. And behold, Miriam appeared to be white with a leprosy, like snow. And when Aaron had looked upon her, and he had seen the spreading of the leprosy,
11. he said to Moses: “I beg you, my lord, not to impose upon us this sin, which we have committed foolishly.
12. Do not let this one be like one who is dead, or like an abortion that has been cast from the womb of her mother. Behold, half of her flesh is already consumed by leprosy.”
13. And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O God, I beg you: heal her.”
14. And the Lord answered him: “If her father had spit on her face, should she not have been filled with shame for at least seven days? Let her be separated, outside the camp, for seven days, and after that, she will be called back.”
15. And so Miriam was excluded from the camp for seven days. And the people did not move from that place, until Miriam was called back.

## Numbers 12 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Locutaque est Maria et Aaron contra Moysen propter uxorem ejus Æthiopissam,
2. et dixerunt: Num per solum Moysen locutus est Dominus? nonne et nobis similiter est locutus? Quod cum audisset Dominus
3. (erat enim Moyses vir mitissimus super omnes homines qui morabantur in terra),
4. statim locutus est ad eum, et ad Aaron et Mariam: Egredimini vos tantum tres ad tabernaculum fœderis. Cumque fuissent egressi,
5. descendit Dominus in columna nubis, et stetit in introitu tabernaculi, vocans Aaron et Mariam. Qui cum issent,
6. dixit ad eos: Audite sermones meos: si quis fuerit inter vos propheta Domini, in visione apparebo ei, vel per somnium loquar ad illum.
7. At non talis servus meus Moyses, qui in omni domo mea fidelissimus est:
8. ore enim ad os loquor ei: et palam, et non per ænigmata et figuras Dominum videt. Quare ergo non timuistis detrahere servo meo Moysi?
9. Iratusque contra eos, abiit:
10. nubes quoque recessit quæ erat super tabernaculum: et ecce Maria apparuit candens lepra quasi nix. Cumque respexisset eam Aaron, et vidisset perfusam lepra,
11. ait ad Moysen: Obsecro, domine mi, ne imponas nobis hoc peccatum quod stulte commisimus,
12. ne fiat hæc quasi mortua, et ut abortivum quod projicitur de vulva matris suæ: ecce jam medium carnis ejus devoratum est a lepra.
13. Clamavitque Moyses ad Dominum, dicens: Deus, obsecro, sana eam.
14. Cui respondit Dominus: Si pater ejus spuisset in faciem illius, nonne debuerat saltem septem diebus rubore suffundi? separetur septem diebus extra castra, et postea revocabitur.
15. Exclusa est itaque Maria extra castra septem diebus: et populus non est motus de loco illo, donec revocata est Maria.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 2576: In the Old Testament ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 2577: In the Old Testament ([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: “Ethiopian” … Sephora the wife of Moses was of Madian, which bordered upon the land of Chus or Ethiopia: where note, that the Ethiopia here spoken of is not that of Africa but that of Arabia.
- Verse 3: Moses being the meekest of men, would not contend for himself; therefore, God inspired him to write here his own defence: and the Holy Spirit, whose dictate he wrote, obliged him to declare the truth, though it was so much to his own praise.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Tue, Aug 3, 2027 (computed): Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Numbers 12:1-13

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).