Habakkuk

Old Testament · 3 chapters · 56 verses.

Chapter 1

1:1The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw:
1:2How long, O LORD, shall I cry for help, and You will not hear? I cry out to You, “Violence!” yet You do not save.
1:3Why do You make me see iniquity and cause me to behold trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
1:4Therefore the Law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surrounds the righteous, and so justice goes forth perverted.
1:5“Look among the nations and behold; be utterly astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if it were declared.
1:6For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which marches through the breadth of the earth to possess dwellings not its own.
1:7It is terrible and dreadful; its judgment and its authority proceed from itself.
1:8Its horses are swifter than leopards and fiercer than evening wolves. Its horsemen charge ahead; its horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle hastening to devour.
1:9All of them come for violence; their faces press forward, and they gather captives like sand.
1:10It scoffs at kings, and princes are a laughingstock to it. It laughs at every fortress; it raises a siege mound and captures it.
1:11Then it sweeps on like the wind and passes over; but it is guilty, for its own power is its god.”
1:12Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, You have appointed him for judgment; O Rock, You have established him for correction.
1:13Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and You cannot look upon wrongdoing. Why do You look upon the treacherous? Why are You silent when the wicked swallows up one more righteous than he?
1:14You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them.
1:15He brings them all up with a fishhook; he catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad.
1:16Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by them his portion is rich and his food abundant.
1:17Will he therefore keep emptying his net and continually slaying nations without sparing?

Chapter 2

2:1I will stand at my watchpost and station myself upon the bulwark; and I will watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
2:2And the LORD answered me and said, “Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tablets, so that the one who reads it may run.
2:3For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the end and will not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it, for it will surely come; it will not be late.
2:4Behold the presumptuous one! His soul is not upright within him; but the righteous shall live by his faith.
2:5Moreover, wine betrays the proud man; he is restless and does not remain at home. He enlarges his appetite like the realm of the dead; like death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all nations to himself and assembles all peoples to himself.
2:6Will not all these take up a taunt against him, with a mocking riddle concerning him, and say, ‘Woe to him who multiplies what is not his! How long will he load himself with goods taken in pledge?’
2:7Will not your creditors rise suddenly, and those who make you tremble awaken? Then you will become spoil to them.
2:8Because you have spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will spoil you, because of human bloodshed and violence against the land, the city, and all who dwell in it.
2:9Woe to him who gains unjust gain for his house, to set his nest on high and be delivered from the hand of evil!
2:10You have devised shame for your house by destroying many peoples, and have brought guilt upon yourself.
2:11For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the timbers will answer it.
2:12Woe to him who builds a city with blood and establishes a town by iniquity!
2:13Behold, is it not from the LORD of Hosts that peoples labor only for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing?
2:14For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
2:15Woe to you who give your neighbor drink, pouring out your wrath and making him drunk, in order to gaze upon his nakedness!
2:16You are filled with shame instead of honor. Drink also, and expose your uncircumcision. The cup in the LORD’s right hand will come around to you, and shameful vomit will cover your glory.
2:17For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you, and the destruction of the beasts will terrify you, because of human bloodshed and violence against the land, the city, and all who dwell in it.
2:18What profit is a carved image when its maker has carved it, or a cast image, a teacher of falsehood, that its maker trusts in what he has fashioned, making mute idols?
2:19Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ and to a mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath within it.
2:20But the LORD is in His holy temple. Be silent before Him, all the earth.”

Chapter 3

3:1A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, set to a wandering melody:
3:2O LORD, I have heard the report of You, and I am afraid. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years; in the midst of the years make it known. In anger remember mercy.
3:3God comes from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Interlude. His splendor covers the heavens, and His praise fills the earth.
3:4His brightness is like the light; rays come from His hand, and there His strength is hidden.
3:5Pestilence goes before Him, and burning plague goes forth at His feet.
3:6He stands and measures the earth; He looks and shakes the nations. The ancient mountains are shattered, and the everlasting hills bow down. His are the ways of old.
3:7I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
3:8Was the LORD angry with the rivers? Was Your anger against the rivers, or Your wrath against the sea, that You rode upon Your horses, upon Your chariots of salvation?
3:9You laid Your bow bare; Your arrows were ready at Your command. Interlude. You split the earth with rivers.
3:10The mountains see You and writhe; a flood of waters passes over. The deep gives forth its voice; it lifts its hands on high.
3:11The sun and moon stood still in their lofty abode; Your arrows flew at the light, Your glittering spear at the brightness.
3:12In indignation You tread the earth; in anger You thresh the nations.
3:13You went forth for the salvation of Your people, for the salvation of Your Anointed One. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying bare the foundation to the neck. Interlude.
3:14You pierced the heads of his warriors with his own arrows. They stormed forth to scatter me; their exultation was as though to devour the poor in secret.
3:15You trod through the sea with Your horses, through the surging mass of many waters.
3:16I heard, and my inward parts trembled; at the sound my lips quivered. Rottenness entered my bones, and I trembled where I stood. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of distress to come upon the people who invade us.
3:17Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there is no produce on the vines; though the yield of the olive fails, and the fields produce no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,
3:18yet I will exult in the LORD; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
3:19Lord, the LORD, is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of deer and causes me to tread upon my heights. To the choir director, with my stringed instruments.