Habakkuk 1 / 3
- 1The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. ( Habakkuk's Complaint )
- 2How long, O LORD , must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save?
- 3Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
- 4Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. ( The Lord 's Answer )
- 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.
- 6I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
- 7They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.
- 8Their 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;
- 9they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
- 10They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them.
- 11Then they sweep past like the wind and go on- guilty men, whose own strength is their god." ( Habakkuk's Second Complaint )
- 12O 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.
- 13Your 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?
- 14You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.
- 15The 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.
- 16Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
- 17Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?