Habakkuk 1

¹The revelation which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

²LORD, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save?

³Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.

⁴Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.

⁵“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days which you will not believe though it is told you.

⁶For, behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

⁷They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.

⁸Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.

⁹All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand.

¹⁰Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it.

¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.”

¹²Aren’t you from everlasting, LORD my God, my Holy One? We will not die. LORD, you have appointed them for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish.