Habakkuk 1

Habakkuk’s Complaint

¹The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

²O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help

How long will I cry out to you, “Violence!”

³Why do you cause me to see evil

Destruction and violence happen before me;

⁴Therefore the law is paralyzed,

For the wicked surround the righteous;

God’s Answer to Habakkuk

⁵“Look among the nations and see;

For a work is about to be done in your days

⁶For look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,

the one who walks through the spacious places of earth

⁷They are dreadful and awesome;[#Hebrew “He”]

⁸Their horses are more swift than leopards;[#Hebrew “His”]

Their horsemen gallop; their horsemen come from afar;

⁹All of them come for violence,[#Hebrew “him”]

¹⁰And they themselves scoff at kings

They laugh at every fortification,

¹¹Then they sweep like the wind and pass on;

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

¹²Are you not from of old,

O Yahweh, you have marked them for judgment;

¹³Your eyes are too pure to see evil,

Why do you look at the treacherous?

Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up

¹⁴You make humankind like fish of the sea,

¹⁵He brings up all of them with a fishhook;

he gathers them in his dragnet.

¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his fishnet

for by them he makes a good living

¹⁷Will he therefore empty his fishnet