NRSV Habakkuk 1 Chapter
1 2 3
1:1
The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
1:2
O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?
1:3
Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
1:4
So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous-- therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
1:5
Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told.
1:6
For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.
1:7
Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
1:8
Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
1:9
They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand.
1:10
At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it.
1:11
Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god!
1:12
Are you not from of old, O LORD my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O LORD, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
1:13
Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?
1:14
You have made people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.
1:15
The enemy brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults.
1:16
Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his seine; for by them his portion is lavish, and his food is rich.
1:17
Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy?