Habakkuk’s Complaint

¹ The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

² O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? How long will I cry out to you, “Violence!” and you will not save?

³ Why do you cause me to see evil while you look at trouble? Destruction and violence happen before me; contention and strife arise.

God’s Answer to Habakkuk

⁴ Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice does not go forth perpetually.¹ For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.

1. Or “forever”

⁵ “Look among the nations and see; be astonished and astounded. For a work is about to be done in your days that you will not believe if it is told.

⁶ For look! I am raising up the Chaldeans, the bitter and impetuous nation, the one who walks through the spacious places of earth to take possession of dwellings not belonging to it.¹

1. Or “him”

⁷ They¹ are dreadful and awesome; their² justice and their³ dignity proceed from themselves.⁴

1. Hebrew “He”
2. Hebrew “his”
3. Hebrew “his”
4. Hebrew “him”

⁸ Their¹ horses are more swift than leopards; they are more menacing than wolves at dusk. Their² horsemen gallop; their³ horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle that is swift to devour.

1. Hebrew “His”
2. Hebrew “His”
3. Hebrew “his”

⁹ All of them¹ come for violence, their faces pressing forward. They gather captives like the sand.

1. Hebrew “him”

¹⁰ And they themselves scoff at kings and rulers are a joke to them. They laugh at every fortification, and they heap up earth and take it.

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

¹¹ Then they sweep like the wind and pass on; they become guilty, whose might is their¹ god!”

1. Hebrew “his”

¹² Are you not from of old, O Yahweh my God, my Holy One? You¹ shall not die. O Yahweh, you have marked them² for judgment; O Rock, you have established them³ for reproof.

1. Hebrew “we shall not die,” considered a deliberate scribal change of the text to avoid offensive language toward Yahweh
2. Hebrew “him”
3. Hebrew “him”

¹³ Your eyes are too pure to see evil, and you are not able to look at wrongdoing.¹ Why do you look at the treacherous? Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up someone more righteous than him?

1. Or “trouble”

¹⁴ You make humankind like fish of the sea, like crawling creatures that have no ruler among them.

¹⁵ He brings up all of them with a fishhook; he drags them up with a fishnet; he gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore, he rejoices and exults.

¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his fishnet and makes offerings to his dragnet, for by them ⌞he makes a good living⌟¹ and his food is rich.

1. Literally “his portion is fat”

¹⁷ Will he therefore empty his fishnet and continually kill nations without showing mercy?