| 1 | The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. |
| 2 | O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? |
| 3 | Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. |
| 4 | So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous — therefore judgment comes forth perverted. |
| 5 | Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. |
| 6 | For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. |
| 7 | Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. |
| 8 | Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. |
| 9 | They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand. |
| 10 | At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it. |
| 11 | Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god! |
| 12 | Are you not from of old, O LORD my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O LORD, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. |
| 13 | Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they? |
| 14 | You have made people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. |
| 15 | The enemy brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults. |
| 16 | Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his seine; for by them his portion is lavish, and his food is rich. |
| 17 | Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy? |
