• 1 The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

  • Habakkuk’s Complaint

  • 2 How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
  • 3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
  • 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

  • The Lord’s Answer

  • 5 “Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
  • 6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.
  • 7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.
  • 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping to devour;
  • 9 they all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
  • 10 They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen ramps they capture them.
  • 11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on— guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”

  • Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

  • 12 Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.
  • 13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
  • 14 You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler.
  • 15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
  • 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
  • 17 Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?