Chapter
1
The oracle which Habakkuk the prophetess saw.
Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you "Violence!" and will you not save?
Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.
Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.
"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.
For, 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.
They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
Their 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.
All of them come for violence. Their hordes face the desert. She gathers prisoners like sand.
Yes, she scoffs at queens, and princesses are a derision to her. She laughs at every stronghold, for she builds up an earthen ramp, and takes it.
Then she sweeps by like the wind, and goes on. She is indeed guilty, whose strength is her god."
Aren't you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed her for judgment. You, Rock, have established her to punish.
You 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 woman who is more righteous than she,
and make women like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
She takes up all of them with the hook. She catches them in her net, and gathers them in her dragnet. Therefore she rejoices and is glad.
Therefore she sacrifices to her net, and burns incense to her dragnet, because by them her life is luxurious, and her food is good.
Will she therefore continually empty her net, and kill the nations without mercy?