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1:1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 1:2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? 1:3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 1:4 So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous-- therefore judgment comes forth perverted. 1:5 Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. 1:6 For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. 1:7 Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. 1:8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. 1:9 They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand. 1:10 At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it. 1:11 Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god! 1:12 Are you not from of old, O LORD my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O LORD, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they? 1:14 You have made people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. 1:15 The enemy brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults. 1:16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his seine; for by them his portion is lavish, and his food is rich. 1:17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy?