Habakkuk 2

2I will ^astand my watch

And set myself on the rampart,

And watch to see what He will say to me,

And what I will answer when I am corrected.

The Just Live by Faith

²Then the Lord answered me and said:

^b“Write the vision

And make it plain on tablets,

That he may run who reads it.

³For ^cthe vision is yet for an appointed time;

But at the end it will speak, and it will ^dnot lie.

Though it tarries, ^ewait for it;

Because it will ^fsurely come,

It will not tarry.

⁴“Behold the proud,

His soul is not upright in him;

But the ^gjust shall live by his faith.

Woe to the Wicked

⁵“Indeed, because he transgresses by wine,

He is a proud man,

And he does not stay at home.

Because he ^henlarges his desire as ¹hell,

And he is like death, and cannot be satisfied,

He gathers to himself all nations

And heaps up for himself all peoples.

⁶“Will not all these ⁱtake up a proverb against him,

And a taunting riddle against him, and say,

‘Woe to him who increases

What is not his—how long?

And to him who loads himself with ²many pledges’?

⁷Will not ³your creditors rise up suddenly?

Will they not awaken who oppress you?

And you will become their booty.

^8jBecause you have plundered many nations,

All the remnant of the people shall plunder you,

Because of men’s ⁴blood

And the violence of the land and the city,

And of all who dwell in it.

⁹“Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house,

That he may ^kset his nest on high,

That he may be delivered from the ⁵power of disaster!

¹⁰You give shameful counsel to your house,

Cutting off many peoples,

And sin against your soul.

¹¹For the stone will cry out from the wall,

And the beam from the timbers will answer it.

¹²“Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed,

Who establishes a city by iniquity!

¹³Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts

That the peoples labor ⁶to feed the fire,

And nations weary themselves in vain?

¹⁴For the earth will be filled

With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,

As the waters cover the sea.

¹⁵“Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor,

⁷Pressing him to your ^lbottle,

Even to make him drunk,

That you may look on ⁸his nakedness!

¹⁶You are filled with shame instead of glory.

You also—drink!

And ⁹be exposed as uncircumcised!

The cup of the Lord’s right hand will be turned against you,

And utter shame will be on your glory.

¹⁷For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you,

And the plunder of beasts which made them afraid,

Because of men’s blood

And the violence of the land and the city,

And of all who dwell in it.

¹⁸“What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it,

The molded image, a teacher of lies,

That the maker of its mold should trust in it,

To make mute idols?

¹⁹Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’

To silent stone, ‘Arise! It shall teach!’

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

Yet in it there is no breath at all.

²⁰“But ^mthe Lord is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”