---
title: "Psalm 38 (39) – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/psalms/38/
description: "Psalm 38 (Psalm 39 in Hebrew numbering) in the CPDV, with the Latin Vulgate. Dixi custodiam. A just man's peace and patience in his sufferings…"
---

# Psalm 38 (39)

Psalm 38 in the Vulgate numbering Bless follows is Psalm 39 in Hebrew numbering (the NABRE, RSV and KJV). Here are all 14 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Dixi custodiam. A just man's peace and patience in his sufferings; considering the vanity of the world, and the providence of God.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Psalm 38 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. Unto the end. For Jeduthun himself. A Canticle of David.
2. I said, “I will keep to my ways, so that I will not offend with my tongue.” I posted a guard at my mouth, when a sinner took up a position against me.
3. I was silenced and humbled, and I was quiet before good things, and my sorrow was renewed.
4. My heart grew hot within me, and, during my meditation, a fire would flare up.
5. I spoke with my tongue, “O Lord, make me know my end, and what the number of my days will be, so that I may know what is lacking to me.”
6. Behold, you have made my days measurable, and, before you, my substance is as nothing. Yet truly, all things are vanity: every living man.
7. So then, truly man passes by like an image; even so, he is disquieted in vain. He stores up, and he knows not for whom he will gather these things.
8. And now, what is it that awaits me? Is it not the Lord? And my substance is with you.
9. Rescue me from all my iniquities. You have handed me over as a reproach to the foolish.
10. I was silenced, and I did not open my mouth, because it was you who acted.
11. Remove your scourges from me.
12. I fall short at corrections from the strength of your hand. For you have chastised man for iniquity. And you have made his soul shrink away like a spider. Nevertheless, it is in vain that any man be disquieted.
13. O Lord, heed my prayer and my supplication. Pay attention to my tears. Do not be silent. For I am a newcomer with you, and a sojourner, just as all my fathers were.
14. Forgive me, so that I may be refreshed, before I will go forth and be no more.

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

1. In finem, ipsi Idithun. Canticum David.
2. Dixi: Custodiam vias meas: ut non delinquam in lingua mea. Posui ori meo custodiam, cum consisteret peccator adversum me.
3. Obmutui, et humiliatus sum, et silui a bonis; et dolor meus renovatus est.
4. Concaluit cor meum intra me; et in meditatione mea exardescet ignis.
5. Locutus sum in lingua mea: Notum fac mihi, Domine, finem meum, et numerum dierum meorum quis est, ut sciam quid desit mihi.
6. Ecce mensurabiles posuisti dies meos, et substantia mea tamquam nihilum ante te. Verumtamen universa vanitas, omnis homo vivens.
7. Verumtamen in imagine pertransit homo; sed et frustra conturbatur: thesaurizat, et ignorat cui congregabit ea.
8. Et nunc quæ est exspectatio mea: nonne Dominus? et substantia mea apud te est.
9. Ab omnibus iniquitatibus meis erue me: opprobrium insipienti dedisti me.
10. Obmutui, et non aperui os meum, quoniam tu fecisti;
11. amove a me plagas tuas.
12. A fortitudine manus tuæ ego defeci in increpationibus: propter iniquitatem corripuisti hominem. Et tabescere fecisti sicut araneam animam ejus: verumtamen vane conturbatur omnis homo.
13. Exaudi orationem meam, Domine, et deprecationem meam; auribus percipe lacrimas meas. Ne sileas, quoniam advena ego sum apud te, et peregrinus sicut omnes patres mei.
14. Remitte mihi, ut refrigerer priusquam abeam et amplius non ero.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 1502: Its Foundations in the Economy of Salvation ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

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