Habakkuk 1:1-11

This is the vision of Habakkuk the prophet: YAHWEH, how long must I cry for help and you turn a deaf ear? My heart cries out, “Save us from this brutality!” but you do not save. Why do you make me stare at injustice? Why do you tolerate such trouble and wrongdoing? Destruction and violence surround me; strife and conflict are everywhere. Therefore, the law is not enforced, and so justice never prevails. The wicked overwhelm the righteous so that justice is perverted. YAHWEH “Look at the nations and observe— you’ll be stunned by what you see. For while you watch, I am about to do something so surprising in your days that you would not believe it even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians to punish you— that fierce and fearsome people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize houses they do not own. They are a feared and dreaded people. In their autocratic arrogance, they become a law unto themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves on the prowl at dusk. Their cavalry charges headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They soar swiftly like an eagle swooping to devour. Their armies invade, intent on violent conquest. Their terrifying hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners as numerous as grains of sand. They are a people who mock kings and scoff at those in authority. They laugh at every stronghold; they pile up earthen siege ramps and capture them. Then they hurry on, like the wind that blows by and disappears. They are guilty men who worship their own power as if it were a god.”