Habakkuk 1

2 How long, Lord, will I cry out

and you will not listen?

How long will I cry to you while I am wronged

and you will not save?

3 Why have you shown me labor and pain,

so that I must look on misery and ungodliness?

Judgment has risen against me,

and the judge accepts payment.

4 Because of this the law is scattered,

and judgment is never carried through to the end.

The ungodly overpower the righteous,

and so twisted judgment comes out.

5 “Look, you who scorn others;

look closely, be amazed at wonders, and vanish,

because I am doing a work in your days

that you would never believe if someone told you.

6 Look, I am raising up against you the Chaldeans, the fighters—

that bitter and swift nation

that marches across the breadth of the earth

to inherit dwellings that are not its own.

7 It is terrifying and renowned;

its judgment will come from itself,

and its claim will come from itself.

8 Its horses leap faster than leopards

and are fiercer than the wolves of Arabia.

Its horsemen ride out and charge from far away;

they fly like an eagle eager to eat.

9 Destruction will come on the ungodly

who set their faces against it,

and it will gather captives like sand.

10 It will amuse itself with kings,

and rulers will be its playthings.

It will mock every fortress,

heap up earth, and take it.

11 Then it will change its spirit, pass through, and make atonement, saying,

‘This strength belongs to my god.’”

12 Are you not from the beginning,

Lord, my God, my Holy One?

We will certainly not die.

Lord, you appointed him for judgment,

and he formed me to examine his discipline.

13 Your eye is too clean to look on evil

and cannot look on suffering.

Why do you look on those who scorn others?

Will you be silent when the ungodly swallow up the righteous?

14 Will you make people like the fish of the sea,

like crawling creatures that have no leader?

15 He hauled his whole catch up with a hook,

dragged it in with a casting net,

and gathered it in his dragnet.

Because of this his heart rejoices and is glad.

16 Because of this he sacrifices to his dragnet

and burns incense to his casting net,

because by them he has made his share rich

and his food choice.

17 Because of this he will keep casting his net

and will never spare the nations from continual killing.