Chapter 1

¹The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw. ²Yahweh, 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 paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.

⁵“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told you. ⁶For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment 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 the desert. He gathers prisoners like sand. ¹⁰Yes, he scoffs at kings, and princes are a derision to him. He laughs at every stronghold, for he builds up an earthen ramp, and takes it. ¹¹Then he sweeps by like the wind, and goes on. He is indeed guilty, whose strength is his god.”

¹²Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed him for judgment. 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?