Habakkuk 1

¹The revelation which Habakkuk the prophet saw. ²LORD, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save? ³Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. ⁴Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.

⁵“Look amongst the nations, watch, and wonder marvellously; for I am working a work in your days which you will not believe though it is told you. ⁶For, behold, I am raising up the Kasdim, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷They are feared and dreaded. Their judgement and their dignity proceed from themselves. ⁸Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour. ⁹All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand. ¹⁰Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it. ¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.”

¹²Aren’t you from everlasting, LORD my God, my Holy One? We will not die. LORD, you have appointed them for judgement. You, Rock, have established him to punish. ¹³You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, ¹⁴and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them? ¹⁵He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. ¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious and his food is good. ¹⁷Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?