Habakkuk 1
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 How long, LORD, shall I cry for help, and you not hear? I cry to you, “Violence!”—and you do not save.
3 Why do you make me see wickedness and look on suffering? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and discord rises up.
4 So the Law loses its force, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous; so justice comes out crooked.
5 Look among the nations and watch; be utterly astonished! For in your days a work is being done that you would not believe if it were told to you.
6 For I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation, which marches across the breadth of the earth to seize homes that are not theirs.
7 They are terrifying and fearsome; their right and their greatness come from themselves.
8 Their horses are faster than leopards, fiercer than evening wolves. Their horsemen charge at a gallop; they come from far away, flying like an eagle swooping down to eat.
9 They all come bent on violence; their faces press forward, and they gather captives like sand.
10 They mock kings, and rulers are a laughingstock to them. They laugh at every fortress; they pile up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and move on, becoming guilty—those whose strength is their god.
12 Are you not from ancient times, LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. LORD, you appointed him to judge; O Rock, you established him to correct.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and you cannot look on suffering. Why, then, do you look on traitors and stay silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
14 You make people like the fish of the sea, like creatures that crawl and have no ruler over them.
15 He pulls them all up with a hook, drags them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and exults.
16 So he offers sacrifice to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because through them his share is rich and his food plentiful.
17 Will he therefore keep emptying his net and killing nations without mercy forever?
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