Habakkuk 2
2
1I will go up to the lookout tower.
I’ll station myself on the city wall.
I’ll wait to see how the Lord will reply to me.
Then I’ll try to figure out how his reply answers what I’ve complained about.
The Lord Replies to Habakkuk
2The Lord replies,
“Write down the message I am giving you.
Write it clearly on the tablets you use.
Then a messenger can read it
and run to announce it.
3The message I give you
waits for the time I have appointed.
It speaks about what is going to happen.
And all of it will come true.
It might take a while.
But wait for it.
You can be sure it will come.
It will happen when I want it to.
4“The Babylonians are very proud.
What they want is not good.
“But the person who is godly
will live by his faithfulness.
5“Wine makes the Babylonians do foolish things.
They are proud. They never rest.
Like the grave, they are always hungry for more.
Like death, they are never satisfied.
They gather all the nations to themselves.
They take all those people away as prisoners.
6“Won’t those people laugh at the Babylonians? Won’t they make fun of them? They will say to them,
“ ‘How terrible it will be for you
who pile up stolen goods!
You get rich by cheating others.
How long will this go on?’
7Those you owe money to will suddenly rise up.
They will wake up
and make you tremble with fear.
Then they will take away
everything you have.
8You have robbed many nations.
So the nations that are left will rob you.
You have spilled human blood.
You have destroyed lands and cities
and everyone in them.
9“How terrible it will be for the Babylonians!
They build their kingdom with money
that they gained by cheating others.
They have tried to make the kingdom
as secure as possible.
After all, they did not want to be destroyed.
10They have planned to wipe out many nations.
But they have brought shame on their own kingdom.
So they must pay with their own lives.
11The stones in the walls of their homes will cry out.
And the wooden beams will echo that cry.
12“How terrible it will be for the Babylonians!
They build cities by spilling the blood of others.
They establish towns by doing what is wrong.
13I am the Lord who rules over all.
Human effort is no better than wood that feeds a fire.
So the nations wear themselves out for nothing.
14The oceans are full of water.
In the same way, the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of my glory.
15“How terrible it will be for the Babylonians!
They give drinks to their neighbors.
They pour the drinks from wineskins
until their neighbors are drunk.
They want to look at their naked bodies.
16But the Babylonians will be filled
with shame instead of glory.
So now it is their turn to drink
and be stripped of their clothes.
The cup of anger in my powerful right hand
is going to punish them.
They will be covered with shame instead of glory.
17The harm they have done to Lebanon
will bring them down.
Because they have killed so many animals,
animals will terrify them.
They have spilled human blood.
They have destroyed lands and cities
and everyone in them.
18“If someone carves a statue of a god, what is it worth?
What value is there in a god
that teaches lies?
The one who trusts in this kind of god
worships his own creation.
He makes statues of gods that can’t speak.
19How terrible it will be for the Babylonians!
They say to a wooden god, ‘Come to life!’
They say to a stone god, ‘Wake up!’
Can those gods give advice?
They are covered with gold and silver.
They can’t even breathe.”
20The Lord is in his holy temple.
Let the whole earth be silent in front of him.
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Ḥaḇaqquq (Habakkuk) 2
2
1I stand at my watch, and station myself on the watch-tower, and wait to see what He says to me, and what to answer when I am reproved.
2And יהוה answered me and said, “Write the vision and inscribe it on tablets, so that he who reads it runs.
3“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, and it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it lingers, wait for it, for it shall certainly come, it shall not delay.
4“See, he whose being is not upright in him is puffed up. But the righteous one lives by his steadfastness.
5“And also, because wine betrays him, a man is proud, and he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his appetite as She’ol, and he is like death, and is not satisfied, and gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples.
6“Shall not all these lift up a proverb against him, and a mocking riddle against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his! Till when is he to load on himself many pledges’?
7“Do not your creditors rise up suddenly? And those who make you tremble wake up and you be plunder for them?
8“Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you, because of men’s blood, and doing violence to the land, to the city, and to all who dwell in it.
9“Woe to him who is getting evil gain for his house, in order to set his nest on high, to escape the clutches of evil!
10“You have counselled shame for your house, to cut off many peoples, and your being is sinning.
11“For a stone from the wall cries out, and a beam from the timbers answers it.
12“Woe to him who builds a town by blood, and establishes a city by unrighteousness!
13“See, it is not from יהוה of hosts that peoples labour only for fire, and nations weary themselves for naught,
14for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the esteem of יהוה, as the waters cover the sea!#See Isa. 11:9
15“Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbour, pouring out your wineskin, and also making him drunk – in order to look on their nakedness!
16“You shall be filled with shame instead of esteem. Drink, you too, and be exposed as uncircumcised! The cup of the right hand of יהוה shall come around to you, and great shame upon your esteem.
17“For the violence done to Leḇanon is to overwhelm you – and the ravaging of beasts by which you made them afraid – because of men’s blood and the violence to the land, to the city and of all who dwell in it.
18“Of what use shall a carved image be? For its maker has carved it: a moulded image and teacher of falsehood! For the maker trusts what he has made: to make dumb idols!
19“Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Is it a teacher? See, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no spirit at all inside it.
20“But יהוה is in His set-apart Hĕḵal. Let all the earth be silent before Him.”
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