Habakkuk 1
1The revelation that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2YHWH, how long will I cry,
and will you not save?
3Why do you show me iniquity? Why do you tolerate perversity?
For destruction and violence are before me.
There is strife, and contention rises up.
4Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous,
so justice comes out perverted.
YHWH’s Answer #1
5“Y’all look at the nations and watch!
Y’all will be completely shocked!
For I am doing something in y’all’s day
that you* wouldn’t believe
even if someone told y’all.
6Look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation.
They march through the width of the earth,
to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7They are feared and dreaded.
Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8Their horses also are swifter than leopards,
and 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.
9 All of them come for violence.
Their hordes face forward.
They gather prisoners like sand.
10 Yes, they scoff at kings,
and princes are a derision to them.
They laugh at every stronghold,
for they build up an earthen ramp and take it.
11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on.
They are indeed guilty,
whose strength is their god.”
Habakkuk’s Prayer #2
12Aren’t you from everlasting,
YHWH my God, my Holy One?
You will never die.
YHWH, you have appointed them for judgment.
You, Rock, have established him to punish.
13You have purer eyes than to see evil,
and cannot look on perversity.
Why then do you tolerate those who deal treacherously
and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than them?
14You make people like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them.
15Chaldea takes up all of them with the hook.
It catches them in its net and gathers them in its dragnet.
Therefore its rejoices and is glad.
16Therefore it sacrifices to its net
and burns incense to its dragnet.
Because through them his life is luxurious
and his food is good.
17Will it therefore continually empty his net,
and kill the nations without mercy?