1The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2O LORD, how long shall I cry and You will not hear? I cry out to You of violence, and You do not save!

3Why do You show me wickedness, and trouble? For destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention rises up.

4Therefore the law has become ineffective, and judgment does not always go forth, for the wicked entraps the righteous; therefore judgment goes forth perverted.

5"Look among the nations, and behold and be amazed and stunned; for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, not even if it is declared to you,

6For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess dwelling places that are not their own.

7They are terrible and fearful; their law and their majesty proceed from themselves.

8Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. And their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from afar. They shall fly like the vulture hurrying to devour.

9"All of them shall come for violence; their faces are set sternly as the east wind; and they gather captives like the sand.

10And they shall scoff at the kings, and the rulers shall be a scorn to them. They shall laugh at every stronghold, for they shall heap up dust and capture it.

11Then he sweeps on like wind, and he transgresses and is guilty, crediting his power to his god."

12Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, You have ordained them for judgment; and, my Rock, You have established them for correction.

13You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity. Why do You look upon those who deal treacherously? Will You be silent when the wicked swallows the man that is more righteous than he?

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

15He takes up all of them with the hook; he catches him with his net and gathers him 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 fat and his food rich.

17Shall he therefore empty his net, and shall he slay nations without pity?