Habakkuk
1
1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 How long, O Jehovah, shall I cry / And You do not hear? / I cry out to You, Violence! / And You do not save.
3 Why do You cause me to see iniquity / And look upon wrong? / Indeed destruction and violence are before me; / And there is strife, and contention arises.
4 Therefore the law is ineffective, / And justice never goes forth; / For the wicked encompasses the righteous, / Therefore justice goes forth perverted.
5 Look among the nations, and see, / And be amazed, utterly amazed. / For I am doing a work in your days / Which you would not believe if it were told you.
6 For I am about to raise up the Chaldeans, / That bitter and hasty nation / That marches through the breadth of the earth / To possess habitations that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful; / Their judgment and their authority issue from themselves.
8 And their horses are swifter than leopards / And more agile than the wolves of evening. / And their horsemen prance about; / Indeed their horsemen come from afar; / They fly like an eagle that hastens to devour.
9 All of them come to do violence; / The set of their faces is forward, / And they gather captives like sand.
10 Indeed they scoff at kings, / And potentates are a derision to them; / They deride every fortress, / For they heap up dirt and take it.
11 Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass over / And thus become guilty; this — their strength — is their god.
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Jehovah, / My God, my Holy One? We will not die. / O Jehovah, You have appointed them for judgment; / And You, O Rock, have established them for correction.
13 You who are of purer eyes than to behold evil / And who cannot look upon wrong, / Why do You look upon them who deal treacherously / And keep silent when the wicked man swallows up him who is more righteous than he?
14 And You make man like the fish of the sea, / Like the creeping things, who have no one to rule for them.
15 They take all of them up with a hook; / They drag them off in their net / And gather them into their seine; / So they rejoice and exult.
16 Therefore they offer sacrifices to their net / And burn incense to their seine, / For by them their portion is fat / And their food is plenteous.
17 Will they then empty their net / And continually slay the nations without sparing?
2
1 I will stand at my watch / And station myself on the fortress, / And I will watch to see what He will speak to me / And what I will reply concerning my complaint.
2 Then Jehovah answered me and said, / Write the vision, and render it plainly upon tablets, / That even he who runs by may read it.
3 For the vision is yet for the appointed time, / And it hastens toward the end and will not lie. / Though it tarries, wait for it; / For it will surely come; it will not delay.
4 See, he who is puffed up, his soul is not upright within him, / But the righteous one will live by his faith.
5 Furthermore his wine is treacherous: / A boasting man, he does not abide at home, / He who enlarges his appetite like Sheol, / And is like death and cannot be satisfied, / But gathers to himself all the nations / And collects for himself all the peoples.
6 Will not all of these take up a parable against him, / Indeed a mocking song and a riddle against him, and say, / Woe to him who increases what is not his (For how long?) / And who loads himself with the burden of pledges?
7 Will not those who bite you rise up suddenly, / And those who shake you awake, / And you will become booty to them?
8 Because you have plundered many nations; / All the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, / Because of the bloodshed of men and the violence done to the land, / To the city, and to all the inhabitants in it.
9 Woe to him who by violence takes evil gain for his house, / So as to place his nest on high / That he may be delivered from the hand of evil!
10 You have devised shame against your own house / By cutting off many peoples, / And have sinned against your own soul.
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, / And the rafter will answer it from the timber.
12 Woe to him who builds a city by bloodshed / And establishes a town by iniquity!
13 Indeed is it not of Jehovah of hosts / That the peoples toil for the fire / And the nations weary themselves for vanity?
14 For the earth will be filled / With the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah / As water covers the sea.
15 Woe to him who makes his neighbor drink, / Adding in his poison, / And also making him drunk / In order to look at their nakedness!
16 You are sated with shame, not glory. / You also, drink and be shown to be uncircumcised! / The cup of Jehovah’s right hand will come around to you, / And disgrace will be upon your glory.
17 For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you, / As well as the destruction of the beasts which frightened them, / Because of the bloodshed of men and the violence done to the land, / To the city, and to all the inhabitants in it.
18 What profit is the graven idol that its maker should engrave it, / Or the molten idol, even the teacher of lies, / That he who forms its form depends on it / To make dumb idols?
19 Woe to him who says to wood, Awake! / And, Arise! to silent stone. / Will it teach him? / Behold, it is set in gold and silver, / And there is no breath at all within it.
20 But Jehovah is in His holy temple: / Be silent before Him, all the earth!
3
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet in shigionoth.
2 O Jehovah, I have heard the report concerning You and am afraid. / O Jehovah, revive Your work / In the midst of the years; / In the midst of the years make it known; / In wrath remember compassion.
3 God comes from Teman, / Even the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah / His splendor covers the heavens, / And the earth is filled with His praise.
4 And His brightness is like the light: / Rays come forth from His hand, / And the hiding of His power is there.
5 Before Him goes pestilence, / And the fire bolt comes forth at His feet.
6 He stands and measures the earth; / He looks and startles the nations; / And the ancient mountains are shattered into dust, / And the everlasting hills sink down; / His goings are eternal.
7 I see the tents of Cushan / Under affliction; / The tent curtains of the land of Midian tremble.
8 Is it against the rivers, O Jehovah, / Against the rivers that Your anger is kindled? / Is Your overflowing wrath against the sea / That You ride upon Your horses, / Upon Your chariots of salvation?
9 Your bow is bared utterly; / The rods of discipline are sworn according to Your word. Selah / You cleave the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains see You; they writhe; / The tempest of water passes by; / The deep utters its voice, / It lifts its hands high.
11 The sun and the moon stand still in their high abode / At the light of Your arrows going forth, / At the brightness of Your glittering spear.
12 In wrath You march through the earth, / In anger You thresh the nations.
13 You go forth for the salvation of Your people, / For the salvation of Your anointed one, / You strike the head from the house of the wicked one, / Laying bare the foundation, even to the neck. Selah
14 You pierce, with his own staves, / The heads of his warriors. / They come out like a whirlwind to scatter me; / Their exultation is as if to devour the poor in secret.
15 You tread the sea with Your horses, / The heap of mighty waters.
16 I heard and my body trembled; / My lips quivered at the sound. / Rottenness entered my bones, / And I tremble in my place, / Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, / When he who attacks us comes up against the people.
17 For the fig tree will not sprout, / And there will be no yield on the vines; / The labor on the olive tree will fail, / And the fields will make no food; / The flock will be cut off from the fold, / And there will be no herd in the stalls.
18 Yet I will exult in Jehovah; / I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
19 Jehovah the Lord is my strength; / And He makes my feet like hinds’ feet / And will cause me to walk on my high places. / For the choir director, with my stringed instruments.