Habakkuk
Chapter 1
1 The oracle which
Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 How long, O Lord,
shall I cry out, and you will not hear? I will cry aloud to you, being wronged,
and will you not save?
3 Why have you shown me
toils and labors, to look upon misery and ungodliness? Judgment has come before
me, and the judge takes bribes.
4 Therefore the law has
been dispersed, and judgment is not carried through to completion, because the
ungodly man oppresses the righteous; for this reason
judgment shall come forth perverted.
5 Behold, you scorners,
and look, and wonder marvelously, and vanish away; for I am working a work in
your days which you would by no means believe if anyone should recount it.
6 For behold, I am
raising up against you the Chaldeans, the warriors, that bitter and swift nation,
which marches over the breadths of the earth to inherit dwellings not its own.
7 It is fearsome and
renowned; its judgment shall be from itself, and its burden shall come forth
from itself.
8 And its horses shall
leap beyond leopards and are swifter than the wolves of Arabia; and its
horsemen shall ride out and shall charge from afar, and they shall fly like an
eagle eager to devour.
9 Destruction shall
come upon the ungodly, resisting with their faces set against them, and it
shall gather captives like sand.
10 And he shall make sport among kings, and tyrants are his playthings; and
he shall mock at every stronghold, and shall cast up a
mound and seize it.
11 Then the spirit
shall change, and it shall pass through and make atonement. This strength
belongs to my God.
12 Are you not from the
beginning, O Lord, my holy God? And surely we shall
not die. O Lord, you have appointed him for judgment; and he formed me to
expose his correction.
13 The eye is pure so
as not to look upon evils, and you cannot look upon sufferings; why do you look
upon those who despise? Will you keep silence while the ungodly swallows up the
righteous?
14 And will you make
men like the fish of the sea and like the creeping things that have no ruler?
15 He drew up
destruction with a hook, and dragged him in with a casting-net, and gathered
him in his seines; therefore his heart shall rejoice
and be glad.
16 Therefore he will
sacrifice to his seine and burn incense to his casting-net, because by them he
has fattened his portion, and his foods are choice.
17 Therefore he will
cast his net, and he will not spare to slay the nations continually.
Chapter 2
1 I will stand upon my
watch and mount upon the rock, and I will look out to see what he will say in
me, and what answer I shall give to my reproof.
2 And the Lord answered
me and said: Write a vision, and plainly upon a tablet, so that the one reading
these things may pursue them.
3 For the vision is yet
for an appointed time, and it will rise up to its end
and not in vain; if it should tarry, wait for it, for
coming it will come and will surely not delay.
4 If he draws back, my
soul takes no pleasure in him; but the righteous one shall live by my faith.
5 But the drunken and
scornful man, the boaster, shall accomplish nothing, he who has widened his
soul like Hades, and this one, like death, is not satisfied; and he will gather
to himself all the nations and receive to himself all the peoples.
6 Will not all these
take up a parable against him, and a riddle for a tale about him? And they will
say: Woe to him who multiplies for himself the things that are not his, how
long? And heavily loads his yoke.
7 For suddenly there
shall rise up those who bite him, and your plotters
shall awake, and you shall become plunder for them.
8 Because you have
despoiled many nations, all the remaining peoples shall despoil you, because of
the blood of men, and the impieties against the land and the city and all who
dwell in it.
9 O he who grasps an
evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be delivered from the hand
of evils!
10 You have devised
shame for your house, you have made an end of many peoples, and your soul has sinned.
11 For a stone shall
cry out from the wall, and a beetle from the wood shall utter these things.
12 Woe to him who
builds a city with blood and prepares a city with iniquities!
13 Are not these things from the Lord
Almighty? And many peoples have been exhausted in
fire, and many nations have grown faint of heart.
14 For the earth shall
be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord; as water it shall cover
them.
15 O he who gives his
neighbor to drink a turbid overthrow, and makes him drunk, so that he may look
upon their caves!
16 Drink, you also,
your fill of dishonor instead of glory, and be shaken and made to quake; the
cup of the right hand of the Lord has come around upon you, and dishonor has
been gathered upon your glory.
17 For the impiety of
Lebanon shall cover you, and the misery of wild beasts shall terrify you,
because of the blood of men, and the impieties against the land and the city
and all who dwell in it.
18 What does a carved image profit, that they carved it? They
fashioned it, a molten thing, a false imagination; for the fashioner has
trusted in his own fashioning, to make dumb idols.
19 Woe to him who says
to the wood, Wake up, arise! and to the stone, Be lifted up! And it is an imagination, and this is beaten work
of gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.
20 But the Lord is in
his holy temple; let all the earth stand in awe before his face.
Chapter 3
1 A prayer of Habakkuk
the prophet, with song.
2 O Lord, I have heard
your report and was afraid; I considered your works
and was amazed. In the midst of two living creatures you will be known; when the years draw near you
will be recognized; when the time is at hand you will be shown forth; when my
soul is troubled, in wrath you will remember mercy.
3 God will come from Thaiman, and the Holy One from a shady, thickly wooded
mountain. Interlude. His excellence covered the heavens, and the earth is full
of his praise.
4 And his brightness
will be like light; horns are in his hands, and he established a mighty love of
his strength.
5 Before his face a
word will go, and it will go forth into the plains at his feet.
6 He stood, and the
earth was shaken; he looked, and nations melted away.
The mountains were shattered by force; the everlasting hills melted.
7 I saw his everlasting
ways in exchange for troubles; the tents of the Ethiopians will be terrified,
and the tents of the land of Madiam.
8 Were you angry at the
rivers, O Lord, or was your wrath against the rivers, or your onrush against
the sea? For you will mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation.
9 Bending, you will
bend your bow against the scepters, says the Lord. Interlude. The earth will be
split with rivers.
10 Peoples will see you
and be in anguish, as you scatter the waters of his passage; the deep gave
forth its voice, the height of its appearance.
11 The sun was lifted up, and the moon stood in its station; your arrows
will go forth into light, into the brightness of the lightning of your weapons.
12 With a threat you
will diminish the earth, and in wrath you will bring down nations.
13 You went forth for
the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones; you cast death upon
the heads of the lawless; you raised up bonds up to the neck. Interlude.
14 You cut asunder in
amazement the heads of the mighty; they will be shaken by it; they will open
their bridles like a poor man eating in secret.
15 And you mounted your
horses upon the sea, churning up much water.
16 I kept watch, and my
belly was terrified at the sound of the prayer of my lips, and trembling
entered my bones, and beneath me my frame was troubled. I shall rest in a day
of affliction, so as to go up to the people of my sojourning.
17 For the fig tree
will bear no fruit, and there will be no produce on the vines; the labor of the
olive will fail, and the fields will yield no food; the sheep have failed from
food, and there are no oxen at the mangers.
18 But I will rejoice
in the Lord; I will be glad in God my Savior.
19 The Lord God is my
strength, and he will set my feet toward completion; he mounts me upon the
heights, to conquer in his song.