Habakkuk chapter 1
Habakkuk complains of injustice
1 The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 How long, O Lord, must I call for help, and you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” and you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice and tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention abound.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice is perverted.
The Chaldeans will punish Judah
5 Look among the nations, and see, and be amazed; for I will do a work in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, a ruthless and impetuous nation, who march across the breadth of the earth to possess dwellings not their own.
7 They are a fearsome and dreadful nation; their righteousness and dignity are their own doing.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than evening wolves, and their horsemen are many; they come from afar, they fly like eagles swooping down to devour.
9 They all come for the prey; terror goes before them, and they gather captives like sand.
10 They scorn kings and mock princes; they laugh at every fortress, and build a siege ramp and capture it.
11 Then they sweep through like a storm, and they take offense, attributing their strength to their god.
Habakkuk's Protest
12 Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have appointed him for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established him for punishment.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate those who treat people with contempt? Why are you silent while the wicked destroy those more righteous than themselves?
14 You make mankind like the fish in the sea, like reptiles with no ruler.
15 He catches them all with a hook; he gathers them in his net and traps them in his seines. He rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his seines, because by them he fattens his portion and makes his food rich.
17 Will he therefore empty his net and not spare to destroy nations continually?
Habakkuk Chapter 2
Jehovah answers Habakkuk
1 I will stand at my watchpost and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what will be said to me and what answer I shall give to my complaint.
2 Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that he who reads it may run.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; it speaks at the end and will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay.
4 Behold, the proud person—his soul is not upright within him—but the righteous person will live by his faith.
5 Likewise, he who is given to wine is treacherous, a proud person who will not endure. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol; he is like death, which is never satisfied. He gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples.”
Woes against the unjust
6 Will not all these people raise a proverb against him, and a sarcastic remark against him? They will say, “Woe to him who amasses what is not his! How long will he heap up pledges upon pledges?”
7 Will not your debtors suddenly rise up, and those who would make you tremble awaken, and you become plunder for them?
8 Because you have plundered many nations, all the rest of the peoples will plunder you, because of the blood of men and the violence you have inflicted on the land, on the cities, and on all who dwell in them.
9 Woe to him who covets dishonest gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to escape the power of evil!
10 You have devised shameful schemes for your house; you have laid waste many peoples, and you have sinned against your own life.
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the plank from the timber will answer it.
12 Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed, and who establishes a city by injustice!
13 Is not this the will of the Lord Almighty? The peoples will labor for the fire, and the nations will exhaust themselves for nothing.
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 drink to his neighbor, pouring out your gall on him, making him drunk so that you may gaze on his nakedness!
16 You have been filled with disgrace instead of honor; drink, you too, and be exposed! The cup from the Lord’s right hand will come to you, and the vomit of reproach will be upon your glory.
17 For the plunder of Lebanon will fall upon you, and the destruction of wild beasts will break you, because of the blood of men, and the violence done to the land, to the cities, and to all who dwell in them.
18 What good is an idol carved by its maker? Or a cast image that teaches lies? For the maker trusts in his own making, making mute images.
19 Woe to him who says to wood, “Awake!” or to a mute stone, “Arise!” Can it teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath in it.
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.
Habakkuk Chapter 3
Habakkuk's Prayer
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, upon Shigionoth.
2 O Lord, I have heard your word, and I was afraid. O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath 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 full of his praise.
4 His brightness was like the light; rays of light flashed from his hand, and his power was hidden there.
5 Plague went before him, and burning coals went out at his feet.
6 He stood and measured the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble; the ancient mountains crumbled, the age-old hills humbled. His ways are everlasting.
7 I have seen the tents of Cushan in distress; the tents of the land of Midian trembled.
8 Were you angry, O Lord, with the rivers? Were you angry with the rivers? Was your wrath against the sea when you rode on your horses, on your chariots of victory?
9 Your bow was fully uncovered; the oaths to the tribes were a sure word. Selah. You split the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains saw you and were afraid; the flood of waters swept by; the deep uttered its voice, it lifted up its hands on high.
11 The sun and moon stood still in their places; at the light of your arrows they went forth, at the brightness of your flashing spear.
12 In anger you trampled the earth; in fury you threshed the nations.
13 You went forth to deliver your people, to deliver your anointed. You pierced the head of the wicked house, laying bare its foundation to the rock. Selah
14 You pierced with their own arrows the heads of their warriors, who came like a storm to scatter me, whose rejoicing was like devouring the poor in secret.
15 You trod on the sea with your horses, on the height of the great waters.
16 I heard, and my heart pounded; my lips quivered at the sound; rottenness entered my bones, and I trembled within me; yet I will wait patiently on the day of trouble, when he comes up against the people, he who will invade with his troops.
17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. To the chief musician on my stringed instruments.