Habakkuk 1

1 The message seen by the prophet Habakkuk.

2 How long, Lord, have I cried out and without you hearing me! I cry to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not help.

3 Why do you make me look upon wickedness and behold trouble? Destruction and violence are before my eyes, and fighting and quarrelling.

4 Therefore the law is weak, and justice is never rendered; for the wicked surround the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

5 Look at the nations, look well, be shocked and amazed. For I am about to do a work in your days; you will not believe it when it is told.

6 For I am about to raise up the Chaldeans, a nation grim and quick of action who sweep over the whole breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.

7 They bring fear and terror. They write their own rules.

8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, quicker than wolves hunting at dusk. From afar they come swooping down, like an eagle attacking its prey.

9 They all come to do violence, a horde like a desert wind, they gather up captives like sand.

10 At kings they scoff, and princes are sport to them. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it.

11 Then they sweep on like the wind, Their strength is their god.

12 Are you not eternal, Lord, my holy one, who does not die? Lord you have appointed them to execute judgment, my rock, you have established them to punish.

13 Your eyes are too pure to look at evil, you cannot condone iniquity. So why do you regard the treacherous in silence, while the wicked swallows the upright?

14 You have made people like the fish of the sea, like reptiles that have no ruler.

15 The wicked sweep them all into their nets, and gather them into their drag-nets, and rejoice and celebrate.

16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn offerings to their drag-net; for by their nets are their portions generous, and their food is rich.

17 Will they empty their nets continually, slaughter nations unpityingly?