Habakkuk 1

¹The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

The Prophet’s Complaint

²O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?^*

³Why do you make me see wrongdoing

and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.^*

⁴So the law becomes slack,

and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the righteous;

therefore judgment comes forth perverted.^*

⁵Look at the nations and see!

Be astonished! Be astounded!

For a work is being done in your days

that you would not believe if you were told.^*

⁶For I am rousing the Chaldeans,

that fierce and impetuous nation,

who march through the breadth of the earth

to seize dwellings not their own.^*

⁷Dread and fearsome are they;

their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.^*

⁸Their horses are swifter than leopards,

more menacing than wolves at dusk;

their horses charge.

Their horsemen come from far away;

they fly like an eagle swift to devour.^*

⁹They all come for violence,

with faces pressing^a forward;

they gather captives like sand.^*

¹⁰At kings they scoff,

and of rulers they make sport.

They laugh at every fortress

and heap up earth to take it.^*

¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind;

they transgress and become guilty;

their own might is their god!^*

¹²Are you not from of old,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

You^b shall not die.

O Lord, you have marked them for judgment,

and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.^*

¹³Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,

and you cannot look on wrongdoing;

why do you look on the treacherous

and are silent when the wicked swallow

those more righteous than they?^*

¹⁴You have made people like the fish of the sea,

like crawling things that have no ruler.^*

¹⁵He brings all of them up with a hook;

he drags them out with his net;

he gathers them in his seine,

so he rejoices and exults.^*

¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his seine,

for by them his portion is lavish,

and his food is rich.

¹⁷Is he then to keep on emptying his net

and destroying nations without mercy?^*