Habakkuk
Habakkuk 2
1 I will stand at my watch, climb onto the rock, and keep watch to see what he will say within me and what I will answer when I am corrected.
Write the Vision Plainly
2 The Lord answered me and said,
“Write the vision clearly on a tablet,
so that the one reading it may run.
3 The vision is still for its appointed time;
it will rise at the end and not prove empty.
If it is late, wait for it,
because the one coming will come and will not delay.
4 If he draws back, my soul takes no pleasure in him,
but the righteous will live by my faith.
5 The drunken, scornful, boastful man will finish nothing.
He has opened his soul wide like Hades;
like death, he is never satisfied.
He will gather all nations to himself
and receive all peoples to himself.
A Saying Against the Conqueror
6 Will not all these take up a saying against him
and a proverb that tells his story? They will say:
“Woe to the one who piles up what is not his—
for how long?—
and loads his heavy collar still heavier!
7 Those who bite him will suddenly rise,
and those plotting against you will wake up.
You will become their plunder.
8 Because you stripped many nations,
all the peoples who remain will strip you,
because of human blood
and the ungodliness of the land, the city,
and everyone living in it.
9 Woe to the one who acts with evil greed for his house,
setting his nest high
to tear himself away from the hand of evil!
10 You planned shame for your house,
brought many peoples to an end,
and your soul sinned.
11 A stone will cry out from the wall,
and a beetle will speak from the timber.
12 Woe to the one who builds a city with blood
and establishes a city through wrongdoing!
13 Are these things not from the Lord Almighty?
Many peoples have been exhausted in fire,
and many nations have lost heart.
14 The earth will be filled with knowing the glory of the Lord,
as water covers them.
15 Woe to the one who gives his neighbor a murky overthrow to drink
and makes him drunk
so that he may look into their caves!
16 You too must drink your fill of dishonor instead of glory,
and be shaken and quake!
The cup in the Lord’s right hand has come around to you,
and dishonor has gathered on your glory.
17 The ungodliness done to Lebanon will cover you,
and misery done to wild animals will terrify you,
because of human blood
and the ungodliness of the land, the city,
and everyone living in it.
18 What use is a carved image, once they have carved it?
They shaped it as cast metal, a false appearance.
Its maker trusted in what he shaped
when he made speechless idols.
19 Woe to the one who says to wood, ‘Wake up! Rise!’
and to stone, ‘Be lifted up!’
It is only an appearance,
a sheet of gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all within it.”
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth stand in awe before him.