Habakkuk 1

1The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw:

2How long, O LORD, have I cried for help and you do not hear? I cry out to you, “Violence!” and you do not save.

3Why do you make me see wrongdoing, and why do you look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife comes to be, and contention rises up.

4Therefore the law grows numb, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surrounds the righteous; therefore justice goes forth twisted.

5Look among the nations and see; be astonished, be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if it were told.

6For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which marches through the broad places of the earth to seize dwelling places not its own.

7It is dreadful and fearsome; its justice and authority come from itself.

8His horses are swifter than leopards and fiercer than wolves at dusk. His horsemen spread out; his horsemen come from far away. They fly like an eagle hurrying to devour.

9All of them come for violence; the set of their faces is forward, and they gather captives like sand.

10He mocks kings, and rulers are a laughingstock to him. He laughs at every fortress; he heaps up earth and captures it.

11Then he sweeps by like the wind and passes on—he becomes guilty; this strength of his is his god.

12Are you not from of old, O Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. O Yahweh, you have appointed him for judgment, and you, O Rock, have established him for reproof.

13Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and you cannot gaze at wrongdoing. Why then do you look on the treacherous and keep silent when the wicked swallows up one more righteous than he?

14You make man like the fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them.

15He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags him away with his net, and gathers him in with his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and exults.

16Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his portion is rich and his food is plentiful.

17Will he therefore keep emptying his net and continually slaughtering nations without mercy?