Habakkuk 1

1 The burden that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2 Until when, O YHWH, will I cry out, and you will not hear? I cry out to You, “Violence!” And will you not save?

3 Why do you cause me to me see iniquity and to look upon trouble? Destruction and violence [are] before me, and there is strife, and contention rises up.

4 Over this, the law is numb, and justice does not go forth forever. For the wicked are surrounding the righteous. Upon thus, twisted justice goes forth.

5 “Look among the nations and observe them, and be utterly astonished. For a work [I am] doing in your⁺ days, [that] you⁺ would not believe even if it were recounted.

6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, marching through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places not unto them.

7 He [is] terrible and fearsome; his justice and his dignity go forth from him.

8 Their horses are swifter than leopards and fiercer than wolves of the evening; their horsemen spring about; and their horsemen come from afar, and they fly like the eagle hurrying to devour.

9 They all come for violence; the full force of their faces [is] the east wind, and they gather captives like the sand.

10 And he mocks the kings, and princes [are] an object of scorn for him; at every fortification he laughs, and heaps up earth and seizes it.

11 Then he sweeps through like the wind and passes on; he is guilty, this one; his power [is] unto his god.”

12 [Are] You not from everlasting, O YHWH my God, my Holy One? We will not die. O YHWH, for judgment You have appointed them, and, O Rock, for reproof You have established them.

13 Purer of eyes than to behold evil, and You are not able to look on wickedness. Why do You look on those acting treacherously, [and] remain quiet when the wicked is devouring one more righteous than he?

14 And You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without one ruling over them.

15 He brings up each with a hook; he catches him in his net, and gathers him in his dragnet; upon thus he is glad and rejoices.

16 Upon thus he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his portion [is] rich and his food fat.

17 Upon thus he will empty his net, and continue to slay nations without having mercy?