1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

2 O LORD, how long shall I cry, and you will not hear! even cry out to you of violence, and you will not save!

3 Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

4 Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment does never go forth: for the wicked does compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds.

5 Behold you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it be told you.

6 For, see, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling places that are not their's.

7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.

9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.

11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power to his god.

12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.

13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity: why look you on them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?

14 And make men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

15 They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.

17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?

the Apparent Prosperity of the Wicked

Hab 1:1-17

Habakkuk probably lived toward the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, when the Chaldeans were preparing to invade the land. Jerusalem was filled with wickedness. Crimes of violence and lawlessness had become so numerous that the prophet was appalled at the sight. He could only point to the fate of other nations, which must also befall Judah unless the people repented. Paul quotes Hab 1:5 in Act 13:41. The Chaldeans are compared to the leopard, the evening wolf, and the east wind. The prophet turns to Jehovah in an agony of expostulation and entreaty. Was He not from everlasting? Was He not Israel's Rock? The prophet's solace is the reflection, We shall not die. An ancient reading is, Thou canst not die. We are reminded of Rev 1:18. O thou undying, unchanging, life-giving Savior, we cling to thee amid the storms that sweep the world, as limpets to the rock.