Habakkuk’s Oracle

1The pronouncementa that the prophet Habakkukb perceived.

The Prophet’s First Complaint

2“How long, LORD, must I cry out for help,

but you won’t listen?

I’m crying out to you, ‘Violence!’

but you aren’t providing deliverance.

3Why are you forcing me to look at iniquity

and to stare at wickedness?

Social havoc and oppression are all around me;

there are legal conflicts, and disputes abound.

4Therefore, the Law has become paralyzed,

and justice never comes about.

Because criminals outnumberc the righteous,

whenever judgments are issued, they come out crooked.”

God’s Response: The Coming Chaldean Invasion

5“Look out at the nations and pay attention!

Be astounded! Be really astounded!

Because something is happening in your lifetime

that you won’t believe, even if it were described down to the smallest detail.d

6Watch out! For I am bringing in the Chaldeans,e

that cruel and impetuousf people,

who sweep across the earth

dispossessing peopleg from homes not their own.

7They are terrible and fearsome;

their brand of justice and sense of honor derive only from themselves!

8Their horses are swifter than leopards,

and more cunning than wolves that attack at night.

Their horsemen are galloping

as they approach from far away.

They swoop in like ravenous vultures.h

9“They all come to oppress—

hordes of them, their faces pressing onward—

they take prisoners as numerous asi the desert sand!

10They make fun of kings,

deriding those who rule.

They laugh at all of the fortified places,

constructing ramps to seize them.

11Then likej the wind sweeping by

they will pass through—

they’re guilty because they sayk their power is their god.”

The Prophet’s Second Complaint

12“Haven’t you existed forever,

LORD my God, my Holy One?

We won’t die!

LORD, you’ve prepared theml for judgment;

Rock, you’ve sentenced themm to correction.

13Your eyes are too pure to gaze upon evil;

and you cannot tolerate wickedness.

So why do you tolerate the treacherous?

And why do you stay silent

while the wicked devour those who are more righteous than they are?

14“You have fashioned mankind like fish in the ocean,

like creeping things that have no ruler.

15The adversaryn captures them with a hook,

gathering them up in a fishing net.

He collects them with a dragnet,

rejoicing and gloating over his catch.o

16Therefore he sacrifices to his fishing net,

and burns incense in the presence of his dragnet,

because by them his assets increase

and he gets plenty of food.

17Is he to continue to empty his fishing net?

Will he ever stop killing entirep nations without mercy?”