Habakkuk1

¹The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

²How long, 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 wrongdoing? 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.

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 dwellings 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 an eagle swooping to devour;

⁹they all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.

¹⁰They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen ramps they capture them.

¹¹Then they sweep past like the wind and go on— guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”

¹²Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.

¹³Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

¹⁴You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the 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?