Habakkuk 1
Habakkuk 1
The revelation which Habakkuk the prophet saw. Verse 2. Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save? Verse 3. Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. Verse 4. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.
Verse 5. “Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days which you will not believe though it is told you. Verse 6. For, behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Verse 7. They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Verse 8. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour. Verse 9. All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand. Verse 10. Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it. Verse 11. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.”
Verse 12. Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed them for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. Verse 13. You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, Verse 14. and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them? Verse 15. He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. Verse 16. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious and his food is good. Verse 17. Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?