Habakkuk 1:6–17

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. 

Habakkuk’s Question

¹²Didn’t you exist before time began, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? 

We will not die! 

O Lord, you have appointed the Babylonians to bring judgment. 

O Rock, you have destined them to correct us. 

¹³Your eyes are too pure to look at evil. 

You can’t watch wickedness. 

Why do you keep watching treacherous people? 

Why are you silent when wicked people swallow those 

who are more righteous than they are? 

¹⁴You make all people like the fish in the sea, 

like schools of sea life that have no ruler. 

¹⁵The Babylonians pull them all up with fishhooks, 

drag them away in nets, 

and gather them in dragnets. 

So they rejoice and are happy. 

¹⁶That is why they sacrifice to their nets and burn incense to their dragnets. 

They are rich and well fed because of them. 

¹⁷Will they keep on emptying their nets 

and always kill nations without mercy?