Habakkuk’s Complaint

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2 O 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?

3 Why do you cause me to see evil

while you look at trouble?

Destruction and violence happen before me;

contention and strife arise.

4 Therefore 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.

6 For 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

7 Theyc are dreadful and awesome;

theird justice and theire dignity proceed from themselves.f

8 Theirg horses are more swift than leopards;

they are more menacing than wolves at dusk.

Theirh horsemen gallop; theiri horsemen come from afar;

they fly like an eagle that is swift to devour.

9 All of themj come for violence,

their faces pressing forward.

They gather captives like the sand.

10 And 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.

11 Then they sweep like the wind and pass on;

they become guilty, whose might is theirk god!”

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

12 Are you not from of old,

O Yahweh my God, my Holy One?

Youl shall not die.

O Yahweh, you have marked themm for judgment;

O Rock, you have established themn for reproof.

13 Your 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?

14 You make humankind like fish of the sea,

like crawling creatures that have no ruler among them.

15 He 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.

16 Therefore 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.

17 Will he therefore empty his fishnet

and continually kill nations without showing mercy?