HABAKKUK
CHAPTER 1

¹ The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.


Habakkuk's Complaint


² How long, O LORD , must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not save?
³ Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
⁴ Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.


The Lord 's Answer
⁵ "Look at the nations and watch-
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.
⁶ I am raising up the Babylonians, ^[1]
that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth
to seize dwelling places not their own.
⁷ They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor.
⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong;
their horsemen come from afar.
They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;
⁹ they all come bent on violence.
Their hordes ^[2] advance like a desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand.
¹⁰ They deride kings
and scoff at rulers.
They laugh at all fortified cities;
they build earthen ramps and capture them.
¹¹ Then they sweep past like the wind and go on-
guilty men, whose own strength is their god."


Habakkuk's Second Complaint
¹² O LORD , are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One, we will not die.
O LORD , you have appointed them to execute judgment;
O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
¹³ Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrong.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
¹⁴ You have made men like fish in the sea,
like sea creatures that have no ruler.
¹⁵ The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his dragnet;
and so he rejoices and is glad.
¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury
and enjoys the choicest food.
¹⁷ Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?

Footnotes

1. 1:6 Or Chaldeans
2. 1:9 The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.

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Bible text from Gospelcom.net.  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

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