¹aThe oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

Habakkuk's Complaint

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

and you will not hear?

Or cry to you c“Violence!”

and you will not save?

³dWhy do you make me see iniquity,

and why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction cand violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

⁴eSo the law is paralyzed,

and justice never goes forth.

fFor the wicked surround the righteous;

so justice goes forth perverted.

The Lord's Answer

⁵g“Look among the nations, and see;

wonder and be astounded.

hFor I am doing a work in your days

that you would not believe if told.

⁶For behold, iI am raising up the Chaldeans,

that bitter and hasty nation,

jwho march through the breadth of the earth,

kto seize dwellings not their own.

⁷They are dreaded and fearsome;

ltheir justice and dignity go forth from themselves.

⁸mTheir horses are swifter than leopards,

more fierce than nthe evening wolves;

their horsemen press proudly on.

Their horsemen come from afar;

othey fly like an eagle swift to devour.

⁹They all come pfor violence,

all their faces forward.

They gather captives rlike sand.

¹⁰At kings they scoff,

and at rulers they laugh.

sThey laugh at every fortress,

for tthey pile up earth and take it.

¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,

uguilty men, vwhose own might is their god!”

Habakkuk's Second Complaint

¹²Are you not wfrom everlasting,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

xWe shall not die.

O Lord, yyou have ordained them as a judgment,

and you, O zRock, have established them for reproof.

¹³You who are aof purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

bwhy do you idly look at traitors

and cremain silent when the wicked swallows up

the man more righteous than he?

¹⁴You make mankind like the fish of the sea,

like crawling things that have no ruler.

¹⁵dHe1 brings all of them up ewith a hook;

he drags them out with his net;

he gathers them in his dragnet;

so he rejoices and is glad.

¹⁶fTherefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his dragnet;

for by them he lives in luxury,2

and his food is rich.

¹⁷Is he then to keep on emptying his net

gand mercilessly killing nations forever?