Habakkuk 1:1–11

Habakkuk’s Vision

¹The divine revelation that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 

Habakkuk’s Question

²How long, O Lord, am I to cry for help, 

but you will not listen? 

I cry out to you, “There’s violence!” 

yet you will not come to the rescue. 

³Why do you make me see wrongdoing? 

And why do you watch wickedness? 

Destruction and violence are in front of me. 

Quarrels and disputes arise. 

⁴That is why your teaching is numbed, 

and justice is never carried out. 

Wicked people surround righteous people 

so that when justice is carried out, it’s perverted. 

The Lord’s Answer

⁵Look among the nations and watch. 

Be amazed and astonished. 

I am going to do something in your days 

that you would not believe even if it were reported to you. 

⁶I am going to send the Babylonians, 

that fierce and reckless nation. 

They will march throughout the earth 

to take possession of lands that don’t belong to them. 

⁷They will be terrifying and fearsome. 

They will carry out their own kind of justice and honor. 

⁸Their horses will be faster than leopards 

and quicker than wolves in the evening. 

Their riders will gallop along proudly. 

Their riders will come from far away. 

They will fly like an eagle that swoops down for its prey. 

⁹They will all come for violence. 

Every face will be directed forward. 

They will gather prisoners like sand. 

¹⁰They will make fun of kings and treat rulers as a joke. 

They will laugh at every fortified city 

and build a dirt ramp to capture it. 

¹¹They will move quickly and pass through like the wind. 

So they will be guilty, 

because their own strength is their god.