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Vulgate Verses 1: Latin

1. (Wisdom 6:12) Clara est sapientia.

2. (Psalms 31:3) Petra mea es.

3. (Psalms 89:11) Tua est terra.

4. (Psalms 57:10) Magna misericordia tua.

5. (Azariah 4) Viae tuae rectae.

6. (Isaiah 55:8) Non viae vestrae viae meae.

7. (I Chron. 29:12) Tuae divitiae et tua est gloria.

8. (Rev. 22:16) Sum stella splendida et matutina.

9. (Luke 10:41) Martha, Martha, sollicita es.

10. (Song of Sol. 4:1) Quam pulchra es, amica mea.

11. (I Chron. 29:11) Tua est magnificentia et potentia.

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Study Guide

1. This verse is from the apocryphal book of Wisdom. Sapientia, "wisdom," is strongly personified as feminine in Latin, as you can see here. The Latin adjective clarus can mean "clear, bright, shining," but it also has the wider, metaphorical connotations of "illustrious, glorious," etc. This is of course where we get the English names Clara, Claire, and so on. The original meaning of the Latin word was closer to something like "clear-sounding," related to the verb clamare, "to shout out."

2. The verb es already conveys the subject of the verb, "you," so no pronoun is needed in Latin. Compare Matthew 16:18, ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam.

3. Here the adjective tua is being used predicatively. To keep the same word order as in Latin, you could say: "Yours is the earth."

4. Notice that here the verb is implied, not stated: Magna (est) misericordia tua. The sentence structure is the same as in Verse #3, but with the verb omitted.

5. Here again the verb is implied: Viae tuae (sunt) rectae. Notice also the freedom of the Latin word order: the predicate can come at the end of the sentence, as here, or first in the sentence, as in the preceding two verses. This verse is from the apocryphal portion of Daniel called the "Prayer of Azariah."

6. The verb is again implied: Non (sunt) viae vestrae viae meae. Try to get used to reading these Latin sentences out loud and letting them convey their meaning without a stated verb of being.

7. This verse has a parallel structure. In one portion, the verb is omitted, tuae (sunt) divitiae, while the verb is supplied in the second portion: tua est gloria.

8. This beautiful verse comes from the book of Revelation. The verb shows that the subject is ego, "I" - and the speaker's identity is revealed in the complete verse as Jesus: Ego Iesus misi angelum meum testificari vobis haec in ecclesiis; ego sum radix et genus David stella splendida et matutina, "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches; I am the root and tribe of David, the bright and morning star."

9. In this verse, Jesus is addressing Martha, the sister of Mary. The name Martha is here in the vocative case.

10. In this verse from the Song of Songs, the noun phrase amica mea is in the vocative case. The word quam has many functions in Latin. Here it is an adverb being used in an exclamatory fashion (you could even add an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence, if you want).

11. This verse shows how in Latin an adjective can agree with the nearest noun. You can understand that as a form of implied parallelism: Tua est magnificentia et (tua est) potentia.

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