Habakkuk 1

Habakkuk Calls for Help

¹The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet beheld.[#1:1 Or burden]

²¶How long, O Yahweh, will I call for help,[#1:2 The personal covenant name of God, a form of I AM WHO I AM, cf. Ex 3:14-15]

And You will not hear?

I cry out to You, “Violence!”

Yet You do not save.

³Why do You make me see wickedness

And cause me to look on trouble?

Indeed, devastation and violence are before me;

And there is strife, and contention is lifted up.

⁴Therefore the law is ignored,[#1:4 Or ineffective ; lit numbed]

And justice never comes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

Therefore justice comes forth perverted.

Yahweh Raises the Dreaded Chaldeans

⁵¶“See among the nations! And look!

Be also astonished! Be astounded!

Because I am doing something in your days—

You would not believe if it was recounted to you .

⁶“For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,

That bitter and hasty nation

Who walks on the breadth of the land

To possess dwelling places which are not theirs.

⁷“They are dreaded and feared;

Their justice and exaltation come forth from themselves.

⁸“Their horses are swifter than leopards

And sharper than wolves in the evening.

Their horsemen come galloping;

Their horsemen come from afar;

They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.

⁹“All of them come for violence.

Their horde of faces moves forward.

And they gather captives like sand.

¹⁰“And they mock at kings,

And rulers are a laughing matter to them.

They laugh at every fortress

And heap up dirt and capture it.

¹¹“Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on.

But they will be held guilty,

They whose power is their god.”

Yahweh Has Placed Them to Judge

¹²¶Are You not from everlasting,

O Yahweh, my God, my Holy One?

We will not die.

You, O Yahweh, have placed them to judge;

And You, O Rock, have established them to reprove.

¹³Your eyes are too pure to see evil,

And You cannot look on trouble.

Why do You look

On those who deal treacherously?

Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up

Those more righteous than they?

¹⁴And You have made men like the fish of the sea,

Like creeping things without a ruler over them.

¹⁵The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook,

Drag them away with their net,

And gather them together in their fishing net.

Therefore they are glad and rejoice.

¹⁶Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net

And burn incense to their fishing net

Because through these things their portion is rich

And their food is fat.

¹⁷Will they therefore empty their net

And continually kill nations without sparing?