| 1 | The burden
or
oracle (the thing to be lifted up) which Habakkuk the prophet saw. |
| 2 | O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and You will not hear? Or cry out to You of violence and You will not save? |
| 3 | Why do You show me iniquity
and
wrong, and Yourself look upon
or
cause me to see perverseness
and
trouble? For destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention arises. |
| 4 | Therefore the law is slackened and justice
and
a righteous sentence never go forth, for the [hostility of the] wicked surrounds the [uncompromisingly] righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted. |
| 5 | Look around [you, Habakkuk, replied the Lord] among the nations and see! And be astonished! Astounded! For I am putting into effect a work in your days [such] that you would not believe it if it were told you. |
| 6 | For behold, I am rousing up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation who march through the breadth of the earth to take possession of dwelling places that do not belong to them. |
| 7 | [The Chaldeans] are terrible and dreadful; their justice and dignity proceed [only] from themselves. |
| 8 | Their horses also are swifter than leopards and are fiercer than the evening wolves, and their horsemen spread themselves
and
press on proudly; yes, their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle that hastens to devour. |
| 9 | They all come for violence; their faces turn eagerly forward, and they gather prisoners together like sand. |
| 10 | They scoff at kings, and rulers are a derision to them; they ridicule every stronghold, for they heap up dust [for earth mounds] and take it. |
| 11 | Then they sweep by like a wind and pass on, and they load themselves with guilt, [as do all men] whose own power is their god. |
| 12 | Are not You from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed [the Chaldean] to execute [Your] judgment, and You, O Rock, have established him for chastisement
and
correction. |
| 13 | You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and can not look [inactively] upon injustice. Why then do You look upon the plunderer? Why are you silent when the wicked one destroys him who is more righteous than [the Chaldean oppressor] is? |
| 14 | Why do You make men like the fish of the sea, like reptiles
and
creeping things that have no ruler [and are defenseless against their foes]? |
| 15 | [The Chaldean] brings all of them up with his hook; he catches and drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is in high spirits. |
| 16 | Therefore he sacrifices [offerings] to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because from them he lives luxuriously and his food is plentiful
and
rich. |
| 17 | Shall he therefore continue to empty his net and mercilessly go on slaying the nations forever? |
Cross references:
-
Habakkuk 1:5 : Acts 13:40, 41.
-
Habakkuk 1:6 : II Kings 24:2.
-
Habakkuk 1:12 : Deut. 32:4.
|