1 The prophecy that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
2 How long, O Lord, will I cry, and you will not hear? and I will cry out to you because of violence, and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see iniquity, and make me see trouble? Destruction and violence are before me, and strife and strife arise.
4 Therefore the law is weakened, and judgment does not proceed according to the truth; Because the wicked besieges the righteous, therefore justice goes awry.
5 Look among the nations, and see, and be amazed; For I will do a work in your days, which, even if it is told to you, you will not believe.
6 For behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, a cruel and hasty nation, which travels across the breadth of the earth to possess other people’s homes.
7 It is formidable and terrible; From herself comes her justice and her dignity.
8 Her horses will be swifter than leopards, and fiercer than night wolves, and her riders will multiply; Their riders will come from afar, and they will fly like eagles rushing to devour.
9 All of them will come to the prey; her terror goes before her, and she will gather captives like sand.
10 She will mock kings, and princes she will make a mockery of her; she will laugh at every stronghold, and she will raise a rampart and take it.
11 Then she will pass like a hurricane, and she will offend by attributing her strength to her god.
12 Are you not from the beginning, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. O Lord, you have appointed him for judgment; and you, oh Rock, founded it to punish.
13 You are very clear-eyed to see evil, nor can you see wrong; Why do you see those who despise, and remain silent when the wicked destroys the one more righteous than himself,
14 and make men like the fish of the sea, like reptiles that have no one to govern them?
15 He will draw them all out with a hook, he will gather them with his net, and he will gather them in his meshes; therefore he will be glad and rejoice.
16 For this reason he will make sacrifices to his net, and offer incense to his nets; for with them he fattened his portion, and fattened his food.
17 Will he therefore empty his net, and will he have no mercy in continually annihilating nations?
1 I will be on my guard, and I will establish my foot on the stronghold, and I will watch to see what will be said to me, and what I will answer regarding my complaint.
2 And the LORD answered me and said, Write the vision, and declare it on tablets, so that he who reads it may run.
3 Although the vision will tarry for a while, but it hastens toward the end, and will not lie; Even if it takes a while, wait for it, because it will undoubtedly come, it won’t take long.
4 Behold, he whose soul is not upright becomes proud; but the righteous will live by faith in him.
5 And also, he who is given to wine is treacherous, a proud man, who will not endure; he enlarged his soul like Sheol, and he is like death, which will not be satisfied; he before he gathered to himself all the nations, and gathered to himself all the peoples.
6 Should not all these raise sayings about him, and sarcasms against him? They will say: Woe to him who multiplied what was not his! How long was he to accumulate on him garment after garment?
7 Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those who make you tremble awaken, and you will be a spoil to them?
8 Because you have despoiled many nations, all other peoples will despoil you, because of the blood of men, and the robberies of the land, of the cities, and of all who live in them.
9 Woe to him who covets unjust gain for his house, to set his nest high, to escape the power of evil!
10 You took shameful advice for your house, you laid waste many towns, and you have sinned against your life.
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the plank of the timber will answer it.
12 Woe to him who builds a city with blood, and to him who founds a city with iniquity!
13 Is this not from the Lord of hosts? The people will therefore labor for the fire, and the nations will toil in vain.
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
15 Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink! Woe to you, who brings your gall to him, and makes him drunk to look at his nakedness!
16 You have filled yourself with dishonor rather than honor; drink too, and you will be discovered; The cup of the right hand of the Lord will come to you, and I will vomit shame on your glory.
17 For the plunder of Lebanon will fall upon you, and the destruction of wild beasts will destroy you, because of the blood of men, and the plundering of the land, of the cities, and of all who lived in them.
18 What is the use of the sculpture that the person who made it sculpted? The cast statue that teaches a lie, so that by making silent images the maker trusts in his work?
19 Woe to him who says to the stick: Wake up; now the dumb stone: Get up! Can he teach? Behold, it is covered with gold and silver, and there is no spirit within it.
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; all the earth shut up before him.
1 Prayer of the prophet Habakkuk, about Sigionot.
2 O Lord, I have heard your word, and I feared. O Jehovah, revive your work in the midst of time, In the midst of time make it known; In anger remember mercy.
3 God will come from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah his glory covered the heavens, and the earth was filled with his praise.
4 And the brightness was like light; Bright rays issued from his hand, And there was hidden his power.
5 Death went before his face, and burning coals came out at his feet.
6 He arose and measured the land; He looked, and made the people tremble; The ancient mountains were broken into pieces, The ancient hills were humbled. His ways are eternal.
7 I have seen the tents of Cushan in affliction; The tents of the land of Midian shook.
8 Are you angry, O Lord, against the rivers? Are you angry with the rivers? Was your anger against the sea When you mounted your horses, And your chariots of victory?
9 Your bow was completely revealed; The oaths to the tribes were a safe word. Selah You split the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains saw you and were afraid; The flood of waters has passed; The abyss gave his voice, To the top of it he raised his hands.
11 The sun and the moon stood in his place; They walked by the light of your arrows, and by the brightness of your shining spear.
12 In anger you have trampled the earth, in fury you have threshed the nations.
13 You went out to help your people, to help your anointed. You pierced the head of the house of the wicked, Exposing the foundation to the rock. Selah
14 You pierced the heads of their warriors with their own darts, Who rushed like a storm to scatter me, Whose rejoicing was enough to devour the poor in secret.
15 You walked in the sea with your horses, On the mass of the great waters.
16 I heard, and my bowels were moved; At the voice my lips trembled; Rot entered my bones, and within me I trembled; Although I will be quiet in the day of trouble, When the one who will invade it with his troops comes up to the town.
17 Even if the fig tree does not blossom, Nor is there fruit on the vines, Even if the produce of the olive tree fails, And the fields do not provide maintenance, And the sheep are taken from the sheepfold, And there are no cows in the pens;
18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, And I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord God is my strength, who makes my feet like deer’s feet, and makes me walk on my heights. To the chief of the singers, on my stringed instruments.
