---
title: "Psalm 73 (74) – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/psalms/73/
description: "Psalm 73 (Psalm 74 in Hebrew numbering) in the CPDV, with the Latin Vulgate. Ut quid, Deus. A prayer of the church under grievous persecutions."
---

# Psalm 73 (74)

Psalm 73 in the Vulgate numbering Bless follows is Psalm 74 in Hebrew numbering (the NABRE, RSV and KJV). Here are all 23 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Ut quid, Deus. A prayer of the church under grievous persecutions.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Psalm 73 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. The understanding of Asaph. O God, why have you rejected us to the end. Why has your fury become enraged over the sheep of your pasture?
2. Be mindful of your congregation, which you have possessed from the beginning. You redeemed the scepter of your inheritance, mount Zion, in which you have dwelt.
3. Lift up your hands against their arrogance in the end. How great the malice of the enemy has been in the sanctuary!
4. And those who hate you have been glorified, in the midst of your solemnity. They have set up their own signs as a proof,
5. as if it had been issued from on high; yet they did not understand. As in a forest of chopped wood,
6. they have cut down the entrances themselves. With axe and hatchet, they have brought it down.
7. They have set fire to your Sanctuary. They have polluted the tabernacle of your name on earth.
8. They have said in their heart, the whole group of them together: “Let us cause all the feast days of God to cease from the land.
9. We have not seen our proof; there is now no prophet. And he will no longer know us.”
10. How long, O God, will the enemy place blame? Is the adversary to provoke your name until the end?
11. Why do you turn your hand away, even your right hand, from the midst of your sinews, until the end?
12. But God is our king before all ages. He has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.
13. In your virtue, you confirmed the sea. You crushed the heads of the serpents in the waters.
14. You have broken the heads of the serpent. You have given him as food for the people of the Ethiopians.
15. You have disrupted the fountains and the torrents. You have dried up the rivers of Ethan.
16. Yours is the day, and yours is the night. You have made the morning light and the sun.
17. You have made all the limits of the earth. The summer and the spring were formed by you.
18. Be mindful of this: the enemy placed blame against the Lord, and a foolish people has incited against your name.
19. Do not hand over to beasts the souls that confess to you; and do not forget the souls of your poor until the end.
20. Consider your covenant. For those who have been darkened upon the earth have been filled by the iniquity of the houses.
21. Do not allow the humble to be turned away in confusion. The poor and the needy will praise your name.
22. Rise up, O God, judge your own case. Call to mind the accusations against you, which are made by the foolish all day long.
23. Do not forget the voices of your adversaries. The arrogance of those who hate you rises up continually.

## Psalm 73 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Intellectus Asaph. Ut quid, Deus, repulisti in finem, iratus est furor tuus super oves pascuæ tuæ?
2. Memor esto congregationis tuæ, quam possedisti ab initio. Redemisti virgam hæreditatis tuæ, mons Sion, in quo habitasti in eo.
3. Leva manus tuas in superbias eorum in finem: quanta malignatus est inimicus in sancto!
4. Et gloriati sunt qui oderunt te in medio solemnitatis tuæ; posuerunt signa sua, signa:
5. et non cognoverunt sicut in exitu super summum. Quasi in silva lignorum securibus
6. exciderunt januas ejus in idipsum; in securi et ascia dejecerunt eam.
7. Incenderunt igni sanctuarium tuum; in terra polluerunt tabernaculum nominis tui.
8. Dixerunt in corde suo cognatio eorum simul: Quiescere faciamus omnes dies festos Dei a terra.
9. Signa nostra non vidimus; jam non est propheta; et nos non cognoscet amplius.
10. Usquequo, Deus, improperabit inimicus? irritat adversarius nomen tuum in finem?
11. Ut quid avertis manum tuam, et dexteram tuam de medio sinu tuo in finem?
12. Deus autem rex noster ante sæcula: operatus est salutem in medio terræ.
13. Tu confirmasti in virtute tua mare; contribulasti capita draconum in aquis.
14. Tu confregisti capita draconis; dedisti eum escam populis Æthiopum.
15. Tu dirupisti fontes et torrentes; tu siccasti fluvios Ethan.
16. Tuus est dies, et tua est nox; tu fabricatus es auroram et solem.
17. Tu fecisti omnes terminos terræ; æstatem et ver tu plasmasti ea.
18. Memor esto hujus: inimicus improperavit Domino, et populus insipiens incitavit nomen tuum.
19. Ne tradas bestiis animas confitentes tibi, et animas pauperum tuorum ne obliviscaris in finem.
20. Respice in testamentum tuum, quia repleti sunt qui obscurati sunt terræ domibus iniquitatum.
21. Ne avertatur humilis factus confusus; pauper et inops laudabunt nomen tuum.
22. Exsurge, Deus, judica causam tuam; memor esto improperiorum tuorum, eorum quæ ab insipiente sunt tota die.
23. Ne obliviscaris voces inimicorum tuorum: superbia eorum qui te oderunt ascendit semper.

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 4: They have fixed their colours for signs and trophies, both on the gates, and on the highest top of the temple: and they knew not, that is, they regarded not the sanctity of the place. This psalm manifestly foretells the time of the Machabees, and the profanation of the temple by Antiochus.
- Verse 13: By making the waters of the Red Sea stand like firm walls, whilst Israel passed through: and destroying the Egyptians called here dragons from their cruelty, in the same waters, with their king: casting up their bodies on the shore to be stripped by the Ethiopians inhabiting in those days the coast of Arabia.
- Verse 15: That is, rivers which run with strong streams. This was verified in Jordan, Jos. 3, and in Arnon, Num. 21. 14.
- Verse 20: Mean and ignoble wretches have been filled, that is, enriched, with houses of iniquity, that is, with our estates and possessions, which they have unjustly acquired.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sat, Jul 1, 2028 (computed): Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time — Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 74:1b-2, 3-5, 6-7, 20-21

Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish. Mass citations number the Psalms in the Hebrew way.

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