Habakkuk
1 The pronouncement that Ha·bakʹkuk the prophet visioned: 2 How long, O Jehovah, must I cry for help, and you do not hear?+ [How long] shall I call to you for aid from violence, and you do not save?+ 3 Why is it that you make me see what is hurtful, and you keep looking upon mere trouble? And [why] are despoiling and violence in front of me, and [why] does quarreling occur, and [why] is strife carried?+
4 Therefore law grows numb, and justice never goes forth.+ Because the wicked one is surrounding the righteous one, for that reason justice goes forth crooked.+
5 “See, YOU people, among the nations, and look on, and stare in amazement at one another.+ Be amazed; for there is an activity that one is carrying on* in YOUR days, [which] YOU people will not believe although it is related.*+ 6 For here I am raising up the Chal·deʹans,+ the nation bitter and impetuous, which is going to the wide-open places of earth in order to take possession of residences not belonging to it.+ 7 Frightful and fear-inspiring it is. From itself its own justice and its own dignity go forth.+ 8 And its horses have proved swifter than leopards, and they have proved fiercer than evening wolves.+ And its steeds have pawed the ground, and from far away its own steeds* come. They fly like the eagle speeding to eat [something].+ 9 In its entirety it comes for mere violence.+ The assembling of their faces is as [the] east wind,*+ and it gathers up captives just like the sand. 10 And for its part, it jeers kings themselves, and high officials are something laughable to it.+ For its part, it laughs even at every fortified place,+ and it piles up dust and captures it. 11 At that time it will certainly move onward [like] wind* and will pass through and will actually become guilty.+ This its power is due to its god.”*+
12 Are you not from long ago, O Jehovah?+ O my God,* my Holy One, you do not die.*+ O Jehovah, for a judgment you have set it; and, O Rock,+ for a reproving+ you have founded it.
13 You are too pure in eyes to see what is bad; and to look on trouble you are not able.+ Why is it that you look on those dealing treacherously,+ that you keep silent when someone wicked swallows up someone more righteous than he is?+ 14 And [why] do you make earthling man like the fishes of the sea, like creeping things over whom no one is ruling?+ 15 All these he has brought up with a mere fishhook;+ he drags them away in his dragnet, and he gathers them in his fishing net.+ That is why he rejoices and is joyful.+ 16 That is why he offers sacrifice to his dragnet and makes sacrificial smoke to his fishing net; for by them his portion is well oiled, and his food is healthful.*+ 17 Is that why he will empty out his dragnet, and does he have to kill nations constantly, while he shows no compassion?+