Old/New Testament
Chapter 1
1 [a]This is the oracle that the prophet Habakkuk received in a vision.
Habakkuk’s Discussion with God
2 How long, O Lord, must I cry for help
while you do not listen?
I cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you refuse to intervene.
3 Why do you make me witness wrongdoing
and confront me with wickedness?
Destruction and violence confront me;
strife is everywhere, and discord abounds.
4 As a result, the law becomes ineffective
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
and judgment becomes perverted.
5 “Gaze upon the nations and see.
You will be amazed, even astounded.
You will not believe it when you are told
what I am doing in your days.
6 For I am stirring up the Chaldeans,
that savage and unruly people,
who march across the whole earth
to seize dwellings of other people.
7 They inspire fear and terror,
and they impose justice and judgment
according to their own standards.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards
and more frightening than wolves at dusk.
Their horses gallop on,
with riders advancing from far away,
swooping like eagles to devour their prey.
9 They are all bent on violence,
a horde moving steadily forward like an east wind;
they scoop up captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings,
they despise rulers.
They regard every fortress with contempt,
as they build earthen ramps to conquer it.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and are gone,
as they ascribe their strength to their god.”
12 “O Lord, are you not from everlasting,
my holy God, you who are immortal?
You have marked them for judgment, O Lord;
you, O Rock, have designated them for punishment.
13 Your eyes are too pure to gaze upon evil,
and you cannot countenance wrongdoing.
Why then do you remain silent
as you gaze on the treachery of the wicked,
watching them while they devour
those who are more righteous?
14 You have made men like the fish of the sea,
like crawling creatures without a ruler.
15 The wicked haul all of them up with a hook
or catch them in a net.
They gather them up in a seine,
and then rejoice and exult.
16 Therefore, the wicked offer sacrifice to their net
and burn incense to their seine,
for, thanks to them, they live sumptuously
and enjoy elegant food.
17 Shall they then be allowed
to draw their sword unceasingly,
and to slaughter nations without mercy?
Chapter 2
1 I will stand at my post
and take up my position on the rampart,
and keep watch to see what he will say to me
and what answer he will offer to my complaints.”
2 Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write down the vision,
inscribe it clearly on tablets
so that it can be read easily.
3 For the vision is for the appointed time;
it will speak of the end,
and it will not lie.
If it delays in coming, wait for it,
for it will surely come before too long.
4 The proud man’s heart is not upright,
but the righteous man will live
because of his faith.[b]
Warning to the Arrogant
5 Moreover, wealth is treacherous;
those who are arrogant do not endure.
They open their throats as wide as Sheol
and are as unstable as death.
They gather to themselves all the nations
and make a harvest of all the peoples.
6 Everyone should taunt such people
and turn on them with mockery and say,
“Woe to you who store up
what is not your own.
Woe to you who enrich yourself
with goods taken in pledge.
7 Will not your creditors rise up suddenly?
Will not those who make you tremble wake up?
Will you not become a victim to them?
8 Since you have plundered many nations,
all the nations that survive will plunder you
because of the bloodshed and the violence
you have inflicted on cities
and all their inhabitants.
9 “Woe to the one who amasses
ill-gotten gains for his household
so as to set his nest on high
and thereby evade the reach of misfortune.
10 You have managed to bring shame upon your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have placed your own life in jeopardy.
11 The very stones will cry out from the wall,
and the beam will respond from the woodwork.
12 “Woe to the man who builds a city
by means of bloodshed
and founds a town on the basis of iniquity.
13 Is it not in the eternal design
of the Lord of hosts
that what the people labor for
is destined for the flames,
and that everything the nations
exhaust themselves to achieve
will come to naught.
14 However, the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the Lord’s glory
just as the waters cover the sea.
15 [c]“Woe to you who encourage your neighbors to drink,
pouring it abundantly until they are drunk,
so that you can gaze upon their nakedness.
16 You will be filled with shame instead of glory
as you stagger in your drunkenness.
The cup in the Lord’s right hand
will be passed on to you,
and shame will overshadow your glory.
17 For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
and the massacre of the animals will terrify you,
all as a result of the bloodshed and violence you inflicted
on cities and all who dwell in them.
18 “Of what use is an idol
after its maker has shaped it?
It is only a presentation, a source of lies.
And why should its sculptor place his faith in it,
a dumb idol that he has made?
19 Woe to anyone who says,
‘Wake up!’ to a block of wood,
‘Rouse yourself!’ to a lifeless stone.
Can such a thing offer guidance?
It may be overlaid with gold and silver,
but there is no breath of life within it.
20 However, the Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth be silent before him.”
Habakkuk’s Prayer
Chapter 3
Canticle
1 What follows is a prayer of the prophet Habakkuk, accompanied by a plaintive tune.
2 O Lord, I have heard of your renown;
your work, O Lord, fills me with awe.
Make it live once again in our own time;
in the course of the years make it known,
and in your wrath remember to have compassion on us.
3 God comes from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His radiance covers the heavens,
and with his glory the earth is filled.
4 His splendor is like that of the sunrise;
rays shine forth from his hand
where his power lies hidden.
5 Pestilence goes before him,
and plague follows close behind.
6 When he stands up, the earth trembles;
at his glance the nations panic.
The eternal mountains are shattered;
along his ancient pathways,
the age-old hills bow down.
7 The tents of the Ethiopians are in distress;
the dwellings of the land of Midian are trembling.
8 Are you angry with the rivers, O Lord?
Or is your wrath directed against the streams,
or your rage against the sea,
that your horses are mounted
and you drive your chariots to victory?
9 You uncover your bow
and fill your quiver with arrows;
into rivers you split the earth.
10 At the sight of you the mountains tremble;
a torrent of water rushes by
and the ocean thunders aloud.
11 At the glint of your flying arrows
and the gleam of your flashing spear,
the sun forgets to rise
and the moon remains motionless in the heavens.
12 In fury you stride across the earth;
in anger you trample the nations.
13 You go forth to deliver your people,
to save your anointed one.
You shatter the house of the wicked,
laying bare its foundations to the bedrock.
14 You pierced with your arrows
the leader of those warriors
who stormed toward us like a whirlwind,
ready to devour the wretched who were in hiding.
15 You trampled the sea with your horses,
churning the mighty abyss.
16 I hear, and my body trembles;
my lips quiver at the sound.
Decay afflicts my bones,
and my legs tremble beneath me.
I wait calmly for the day of disaster
that will dawn on the people who attack us.
17 Even though the fig tree does not blossom
and there is no fruit on the vines,
even though the olive crop will fail
and the orchards will yield no food,
even though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
18 I will continue to rejoice in the Lord,
and exult in the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord God is my strength;
he makes my feet as swift as those of a deer
and enables me to tread on the heights.
Chapter 15
The Seven Angels and the Seven Plagues.[a] 1 Then I saw in heaven another great and wondrous sign: seven angels with the seven plagues, the last plagues of all, for through them the wrath of God is completed.
The Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb.[b] 2 I saw something that looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire. Standing beside the sea of glass and holding the harps that God had given them were those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They were holding harps given them by God 3 and singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:
“How great and wonderful are your works,
Lord God Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
O King of the nations!
4 Who shall not fear you, O Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your acts of justice have been revealed.”
The Justice and Triumph of God[c]
Vision of the Temple. 5 After this, in my vision, the temple, that is, the tabernacle of the Testimony,[d] was opened in heaven, 6 and from the temple emerged the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were robed in clean, shining linen, and breastplates of gold were fastened around their chests.
7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven gold bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. 8 The temple was filled with the smoke from the glory of God and from his power, so that no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.
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