1:1 The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.
1:2 How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
1:3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
1:4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
1:5 “Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
1:6 I am raising up the Babylonians,* that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own. / *Or Chaldeans
1:7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.
1:8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping to devour;
1:9 they all come intent on violence. Their hordes* advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. / *The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
1:10 They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen ramps they capture them.
1:11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on - guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”
1:12 Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you* will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish. / *An ancient Hebrew scribal tradition; Masoretic Text we
1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
1:14 You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler.
1:15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
1:16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
1:17 Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?