Habakkuk’s First Complaint

1The burden that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2Until when, O YHWH, will I cry out,

and you will not hear?

I cry out to You, “Violence!”

And will you not save?

3Why do you cause me to me see iniquity

and to look upon trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me,

and there is strife, and contention rises up.

4Over this, the law is numb,

and justice does not go forth forever.

For the wicked are surrounding the righteous.

Upon thus, twisted justice goes forth.

Yahweh’s Answer

5“Look among the nations and observe them,

and be utterly astonished.†

For a work I am doing in your⁺ days,

that you⁺ would not believe

even if it were recounted.†

6For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,†

that bitter and hasty nation,

marching through the breadth of the earth,

to possess dwelling places not unto them.

7He is terrible and fearsome;

his justice and his dignity go forth from him.

8Their horses are swifter than leopards

and fiercer than wolves of the evening;

their horsemen spring about;

and their horsemen come from afar,

and they fly like the eagle

hurrying to devour.

9They all come for violence;

the full force of their faces is the east wind,

and they gather captives like the sand.

10And he mocks the kings,

and princes are an object of scorn for him;

at every fortification he laughs,

and heaps up earth and seizes it.

11Then he sweeps through like the wind

and passes on;

he is guilty, this one;

his power is unto his god.”

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
(Psalm 11:1–7)

12Are You not from everlasting,

O YHWH my God, my Holy One?

We will not die.

O YHWH, for judgment

You have appointed them,

and, O Rock, for reproof

You have established them.

13Purer of eyes than to behold evil,

and You are not able to look on wickedness.

Why do You look on those acting treacherously,

and remain quiet

when the wicked is devouring

one more righteous than he?

14And You make mankind like the fish of the sea,

like creeping things without one ruling over them.

15He brings up each with a hook;

he catches him in his net,

and gathers him in his dragnet;

upon thus he is glad and rejoices.

16Upon thus he sacrifices to his net,

and burns incense to his dragnet,

because by them his portion is rich

and his food fat.

17Upon thus he will empty his net,

and continue to slay nations without having mercy?