Habakkuk 1

Lexham English Bible

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
² O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help
    and you will not listen?
How long will I cry out to you, “Violence!”
    and you will not save?
³ Why do you cause me to see evil
    while you look at trouble?
Destruction and violence happen before me;
    contention and strife arise.
⁴ Therefore the law is paralyzed,
    and justice does not go forth perpetually.^[a]
For the wicked surround the righteous;
    therefore justice goes forth perverted.

⁵ “Look among the nations and see;
    be astonished and astounded.
For a work is about to be done in your days
    that you will not believe if it is told.
⁶ For look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,
    the bitter and impetuous nation,
the one who walks through the spacious places of earth
    to take possession of dwellings not belonging to it.^[b]
7 They^[c] are dreadful and awesome;
    their^[d] justice and their^[e] dignity proceed from themselves.^[f]
8 Their^[g] horses are more swift than leopards;
    they are more menacing than wolves at dusk.
Their^[h] horsemen gallop; their^[i] horsemen come from afar;
    they fly like an eagle that is swift to devour.
⁹ All of them^[j] come for violence,
    their faces pressing forward.
    They gather captives like the sand.
¹⁰ And they themselves scoff at kings
    and rulers are a joke to them.
They laugh at every fortification,
    and they heap up earth and take it.
¹¹ Then they sweep like the wind and pass on;
    they become guilty, whose might is their^[k] god!”

¹² Are you not from of old,
    O Yahweh my God, my Holy One?
    You^[l] shall not die.
O Yahweh, you have marked them^[m] for judgment;
    O Rock, you have established them^[n] for reproof.
¹³ Your eyes are too pure to see evil,
    and you are not able to look at wrongdoing.^[o]
Why do you look at the treacherous?
Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up
    someone more righteous than him?
¹⁴ You make humankind like fish of the sea,
    like crawling creatures that have no ruler among them.
¹⁵ He brings up all of them with a fishhook;
    he drags them up with a fishnet;
he gathers them in his dragnet.
    Therefore, he rejoices and exults.
¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his fishnet
    and makes offerings to his dragnet,
for by them he makes a good living^[p]
    and his food is rich.
¹⁷ Will he therefore empty his fishnet
    and continually kill nations without showing mercy?