Habakkuk

¹The revelation which Habakkuk the prophet saw. ²Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save? ³Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. ⁴Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.

⁵“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days which you will not believe though it is told you. ⁶For, behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. ⁸Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour. ⁹All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand. ¹⁰Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it. ¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.”

¹²Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed them for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. ¹³You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, ¹⁴and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them? ¹⁵He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. ¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious and his food is good. ¹⁷Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?

¹I will stand at my watch and set myself on the ramparts, and will look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

²Yahweh answered me, “Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he who runs may read it. ³For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it takes time, wait for it, because it will surely come. It won’t delay. ⁴Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith. ⁵Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous: an arrogant man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol; he is like death and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations and heaps to himself all peoples.

⁶Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’ ⁷Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim? ⁸Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.

⁹Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! ¹⁰You have devised shame to your house by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul. ¹¹For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it.

¹²Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! ¹³Behold, isn’t it from Yahweh of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? ¹⁴For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh’s glory, as the waters cover the sea.

¹⁵“Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! ¹⁶You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink and be exposed! The cup of Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. ¹⁷For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals will terrify you, because of men’s blood and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.

¹⁸“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? ¹⁹Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it. ²⁰But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”

¹A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, set to victorious music.

²Yahweh, I have heard of your fame.

³God came from Teman,

⁴His splendor is like the sunrise.

⁵Plague went before him,

⁶He stood, and shook the earth.

⁷I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction.

⁸Was Yahweh displeased with the rivers?

⁹You uncovered your bow.

¹⁰The mountains saw you, and were afraid.

¹¹The sun and moon stood still in the sky

¹²You marched through the land in wrath.

¹³You went out for the salvation of your people,

¹⁴You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears.

¹⁵You trampled the sea with your horses,

¹⁶I heard, and my body trembled.

¹⁷For even though the fig tree doesn’t flourish,

¹⁸yet I will rejoice in Yahweh.

¹⁹Yahweh, the Lord, ” is my strength.