| 章 |
| 1:1 |
The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.
|
| 1:2 |
How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save?
|
| 1:3 |
Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
|
| 1:4 |
Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
|
| 1:5 |
"Look at the nations and watch-- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
|
| 1:6 |
I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
|
| 1:7 |
They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.
|
| 1:8 |
Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;
|
| 1:9 |
they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
|
| 1:10 |
They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them.
|
| 1:11 |
Then they sweep past like the wind and go on-- guilty men, whose own strength is their god."
|
| 1:12 |
O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
|
| 1:13 |
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
|
| 1:14 |
You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.
|
| 1:15 |
The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
|
| 1:16 |
Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
|
| 1:17 |
Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
|
