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The New Revised Standard Version
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The Prophet’s Complaint

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

and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?

3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing

and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

4 So the law becomes slack

and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the righteous—

therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

5 Look 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.

6 For I am rousing the Chaldeans,

that fierce and impetuous nation,

who march through the breadth of the earth

to seize dwellings not their own.

7 Dread and fearsome are they;

their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.

8 Their 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.

9 They all come for violence,

with faces pressinga forward;

they gather captives like sand.

10 At kings they scoff,

and of rulers they make sport.

They laugh at every fortress,

and heap up earth to take it.

11 Then they sweep by like the wind;

they transgress and become guilty;

their own might is their god!

12 Are you not from of old,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

Youb shall not die.

O Lord, you have marked them for judgment;

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

13 Your 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?

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

like crawling things that have no ruler.

15 The enemyc 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.

16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his seine;

for by them his portion is lavish,

and his food is rich.

17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net,

and destroying nations without mercy?

NRSV

About The New Revised Standard Version

The original Revised Standard Version served as a standard for nearly forty years. The New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha maintains the traditions of the older version with fresh new vocabulary and modern English construction.

Copyright

Up to five hundred (500) verses of The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible text may be quoted or reprinted without the express written permission of the publisher, provided that the verses quoted neither amount to a complete book of the Bible nor account for 50% or more of the written text of the total work in which they are quoted.

When the NRSV text is quoted, notice of copyright must appear on the title or copyright page of the work as follows:

The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

When quotations from the NRSV text are used in a non-saleable media, such as church bulletins, orders of service, posters, transparencies or similar media, the initials (NRSV) may be used at the end of each quotation.

Quotations or reprints in excess of five hundred (500) verses (as well as other permissions requests) must be approved in writing by the NRSV Permissions Office, The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115-0050.

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