Habakkuk 1:6–17

⁶For behold, ⁱI am raising up the Chaldeans,

that bitter and hasty nation,

^jwho march through the breadth of the earth,

^kto seize dwellings not their own.

⁷They are dreaded and fearsome;

^ltheir justice and dignity go forth from themselves.

^8mTheir horses are swifter than leopards,

more fierce than ⁿthe evening wolves;

their horsemen press proudly on.

Their horsemen come from afar;

^othey fly like an eagle swift to devour.

⁹They all come ^pfor violence,

all their faces forward.

They gather captives ^rlike sand.

¹⁰At kings they scoff,

and at rulers they laugh.

^sThey laugh at every fortress,

for ^tthey pile up earth and take it.

¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,

^uguilty men, ^vwhose own might is their god!”

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

¹²Are you not ^wfrom everlasting,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

^xWe shall not die.

O Lord, ^yyou have ordained them as a judgment,

and you, O ^zRock, have established them for reproof.

¹³You who are ^aof purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

^bwhy do you idly look at traitors

and ^cremain silent when the wicked swallows up

the man more righteous than he?

¹⁴You make mankind like the fish of the sea,

like crawling things that have no ruler.

^15dHe¹ brings all of them up ^ewith a hook;

he drags them out with his net;

he gathers them in his dragnet;

so he rejoices and is glad.

^16fTherefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his dragnet;

for by them he lives in luxury,²

and his food is rich.

¹⁷Is he then to keep on emptying his net

^gand mercilessly killing nations forever?