Habakkuk 1

Habakkuk’s Complaint

1The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

²O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help

and you will not listen?

How long will I cry out to you, “Violence!”

and you will not save?

³Why do you cause me to see evil

while you look at trouble?

Destruction and violence happen before me;

contention and strife arise.

⁴Therefore the law is paralyzed,

and justice does not go forth perpetually.^a

For the wicked surround the righteous;

therefore justice goes forth perverted.

God’s Answer to Habakkuk

⁵“Look among the nations and see;

be astonished and astounded.

For a work is about to be done in your days

that you will not believe if it is told.

⁶For look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,

the bitter and impetuous nation,

the one who walks through the spacious places of earth

to take possession of dwellings not belonging to it.^b

⁷They^c are dreadful and awesome;

their^d justice and their^e dignity proceed from themselves.^f

⁸Their^g horses are more swift than leopards;

they are more menacing than wolves at dusk.

Their^h horsemen gallop; theirⁱ horsemen come from afar;

they fly like an eagle that is swift to devour.

⁹All of them^j come for violence,

their faces pressing forward.

They gather captives like the sand.

¹⁰And they themselves scoff at kings

and rulers are a joke to them.

They laugh at every fortification,

and they heap up earth and take it.

¹¹Then they sweep like the wind and pass on;

they become guilty, whose might is their^k god!”

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

¹²Are you not from of old,

O Yahweh my God, my Holy One?

You^l shall not die.

O Yahweh, you have marked them^m for judgment;

O Rock, you have established themⁿ for reproof.

¹³Your eyes are too pure to see evil,

and you are not able to look at wrongdoing.^o

Why do you look at the treacherous?

Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up

someone more righteous than him?

¹⁴You make humankind like fish of the sea,

like crawling creatures that have no ruler among them.

¹⁵He brings up all of them with a fishhook;

he drags them up with his fishnet,

and he gathers them in his dragnet.

Therefore, he rejoices and exults.

¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his fishnet

and makes offerings to his dragnet,

for by them he makes a good living^p

and his food is rich.

¹⁷Will he therefore empty his fishnet

and continually kill nations without showing mercy?