Habakkuk 1:6–17

⁶For indeed I am ^fraising up the Chaldeans,

A bitter and hasty ^gnation

Which marches through the breadth of the earth,

To possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

⁷They are terrible and dreadful;

Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.

⁸Their horses also are ^hswifter than leopards,

And more fierce than evening wolves.

Their ³chargers ⁴charge ahead;

Their cavalry comes from afar;

They fly as the ⁱeagle that hastens to eat.

⁹“They all come for violence;

Their faces are set like the east wind.

They gather captives like sand.

¹⁰They scoff at kings,

And princes are scorned by them.

They deride every stronghold,

For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.

¹¹Then his ⁵mind changes, and he transgresses;

He commits offense,

^jAscribing this power to his god.”

The Prophet’s Second Question

¹²Are You not ^kfrom everlasting,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

We shall not die.

O Lord, ^lYou have appointed them for judgment;

O Rock, You have marked them for ^mcorrection.

¹³You are of purer eyes than to behold evil,

And cannot look on wickedness.

Why do You look on those who deal treacherously,

And hold Your tongue when the wicked devours

A person more righteous than he?

¹⁴Why do You make men like fish of the sea,

Like creeping things that have no ruler over them?

¹⁵They take up all of them with a hook,

They catch them in their net,

And gather them in their dragnet.

Therefore they rejoice and are glad.

¹⁶Therefore ⁿthey sacrifice to their net,

And burn incense to their dragnet;

Because by them their share is ⁶sumptuous

And their food plentiful.

¹⁷Shall they therefore empty their net,

And continue to slay nations without pity?