1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
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 wrongdoing? for destruction and violence are before me: and there are those who raise up strife and contention.
4 Therefore the law is weakened, and justice never goes forth: for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds.
5 Behold ye 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, lo, 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 theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are fiercer than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves out, and their horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly like the eagle that hastens to eat.
9 They shall come only for violence: their faces shall gather up like the east wind, and they shall gather captives like the sand.
10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap up dust, and take it.
11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, giving credit to his god for this his power.
Second Burden of Habakkuk
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 cannot look on iniquity: why do you look upon those who deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man who is more righteous than he?
14 And makes men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
15 They take up all of them with the hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet: therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their dragnet; because by them their portion is fat, and their food plentiful.
17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?