1:1 | The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. |
1:2 | How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? |
1:3 | Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. |
1:4 | Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. |
1:5 | "Look at the nations and watch--and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. |
1:6 | I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. |
1:7 | They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. |
1:8 | Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour; |
1:9 | they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. |
1:10 | They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them. |
1:11 | Then they sweep past like the wind and go on--guilty men, whose own strength is their god." |
1:12 | O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish. |
1:13 | Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? |
1:14 | You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler. |
1:15 | The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad. |
1:16 | Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. |
1:17 | Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy? |
| |