---
title: "Wisdom 11 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/wisdom/11/
description: "Other benefits of wisdom to the people of God. Wisdom 11 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Wisdom 11

Wisdom 11 is chapter 11 of 19 in the Book of Wisdom. Here are all 27 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Other benefits of wisdom to the people of God.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Wisdom 11 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. She directed their works in the hands of the holy prophet.
2. They made a path through desolate areas, which were uninhabited, and set up their homes in remote places.
3. They stood firm against the enemy, and vindicated themselves from their adversaries.
4. They thirsted, and they called upon you, and water was given them out of the deepest rock, and respite from thirst out of the hard stone.
5. For through water, their enemies had been punished, by the corruption of their drinking water; and so, among them, when the sons of Israel lacked the abundance they would have had, their enemies rejoiced;
6. yet through water, when they were in need, it turned out well for them.
7. For instead of a fountain, even everlasting in flow, you gave human blood to the unjust,
8. and while they would be crushed into disgrace because of the murdering of infants, you unexpectedly gave your own abundant water,
9. revealing through the thirst, which occurred at that time, how you would exalt your own and would kill their adversaries.
10. For when they were being tested, and even when receiving merciful correction, they knew in what way, when your wrath judged the impious, they would suffer torments.
11. For these, advising like a father, you approved; but the others, interrogating like a severe king, you condemned.
12. For whether absent or present, they were tortured alike.
13. For they had received double: weariness and groaning in the remembrance of things past.
14. For when they paid attention to their punishments, to attend to their own benefit, they called to mind the Lord, admiring the end result.
15. For though they showed scorn by throwing out distorted statements, in the end they were amazed at the result, but this is not the same as thirsting for justice.
16. For according to the thinking of their irrational iniquity, because some, going astray, were worshiping mute serpents and worthless beasts, you sent upon them a multitude of mute beasts for vengeance,
17. so that they might know that by whatever things a man sins, by the same also is he tormented.
18. For it was not impossible for your all-powerful hand, which created the world from unknown material, to send forth upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions,
19. or, in anger, beasts of a new kind, massive and strange, either breathing out a fiery vapor, or sending forth an odorous smoke, or shooting horrible sparks from their eyes;
20. whereby, not only wounds would be able to destroy them, but also the very sight would kill them through fear.
21. Yet, even without these, they could have been killed with one breath, suffering persecution of their own making and being scattered by your spirit of virtue; but you have ordered all things in size and number and weight.
22. Though many are strong, you alone always overcome. And who will withstand the strength of your arm?
23. For, like a tiny grain on a scale, just so is the world before you, and like a drop of dew before dawn, which descends upon the earth.
24. But you are merciful to all, because you can do all, and you dismiss the sins of man because of repentance.
25. For you love all things that are, and you hate nothing of the things you have made; for you would not have created or established anything that you hated.
26. For how could anything endure, except by your will? Or what, having been called by you not to exist, would be preserved?
27. Yet you spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord, who loves souls.

## Wisdom 11 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Direxit opera eorum in manibus prophetæ sancti.
2. Iter fecerunt per deserta quæ non habitabantur, et in locis desertis fixerunt casas.
3. Steterunt contra hostes, et de inimicis se vindicaverunt.
4. Sitierunt, et invocaverunt te, et data est illis aqua de petra altissima, et requies sitis de lapide duro.
5. Per quæ enim pœnas passi sunt inimici illorum a defectione potus sui, et in eis cum abundarent filii Israël lætati sunt:
6. per hæc, cum illis deessent, bene cum illis actum est.
7. Nam pro fonte quidem sempiterni fluminis, humanum sanguinem dedisti injustis.
8. Qui cum minuerentur in traductione infantium occisorum, dedisti illis abundantem aquam insperate,
9. ostendens per sitim quæ tunc fuit, quemadmodum tuos exaltares, et adversarios illorum necares.
10. Cum enim tentati sunt, et quidem cum misericordia disciplinam accipientes, scierunt quemadmodum cum ira judicati impii tormenta paterentur.
11. Hos quidem tamquam pater monens probasti; illos autem tamquam durus rex interrogans condemnasti.
12. Absentes enim, et præsentes, similiter torquebantur.
13. Duplex enim illos acceperat tædium et gemitus, cum memoria præteritorum.
14. Cum enim audirent per sua tormenta bene secum agi, commemorati sunt Dominum, admirantes in finem exitus.
15. Quem enim in expositione prava projectum deriserunt, in finem eventus mirati sunt, non similiter justis sitientes.
16. Pro cogitationibus autem insensatis iniquitatis illorum, quod quidam errantes colebant mutos serpentes et bestias supervacuas, immisisti illis multitudinem mutorum animalium in vindictam;
17. ut scirent quia per quæ peccat quis, per hæc et torquetur.
18. Non enim impossibilis erat omnipotens manus tua, quæ creavit orbem terrarum ex materia invisa, immittere illis multitudinem ursorum, aut audaces leones,
19. aut novi generis ira plenas ignotas bestias, aut vaporem ignium spirantes, aut fumi odorem proferentes, aut horrendas ab oculis scintillas emittentes;
20. quarum non solum læsura poterat illos exterminare, sed et aspectus per timorem occidere.
21. Sed et sine his uno spiritu poterant occidi, persecutionem passi ab ipsis factis suis, et dispersi per spiritum virtutis tuæ: sed omnia in mensura, et numero et pondere disposuisti.
22. Multum enim valere, tibi soli supererat semper: et virtuti brachii tui quis resistet?
23. Quoniam tamquam momentum stateræ, sic est ante te orbis terrarum, et tamquam gutta roris antelucani quæ descendit in terram.
24. Sed misereris omnium, quia omnia potes; et dissimulas peccata hominum, propter pœnitentiam.
25. Diligis enim omnia quæ sunt, et nihil odisti eorum quæ fecisti; nec enim odiens aliquid constituisti aut fecisti.
26. Quomodo autem posset aliquid permanere, nisi tu voluisses? aut quod a te vocatum non esset conservaretur?
27. Parcis autem omnibus, quoniam tua sunt, Domine, qui amas animas.

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 1: “The holy prophet” … Moses.
- Verse 3: The Amalecites.
- Verse 5: The meaning is, that God, who wrought a miracle to punish the Egyptians by thirst, when he turned all their waters into blood, (at which time the Israelites, who were exempt from those plagues, had plenty of water,) wrought another miracle in favour of his own people in their thirst, by giving them water out of the rock.
- Verse 14: That is, that the Israelites had been benefited and miraculously favoured in the same kind, in which they had been punished.
- Verse 16: Viz., frogs, sciniphs, flies, and locusts.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sun, Nov 5, 2028 (computed): Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Wisdom 11:22—12:2

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).