Habakkuk 1
1
Habakkuk Complains to God
1This is the message that was given to Habakkuk the prophet.
2Lord, I continue to ask for help. When will you listen to me? I cried to you about the violence, but you did nothing! 3People are stealing things and hurting others. They are arguing and fighting. Why do you make me look at these terrible things? 4The law is weak and not fair to people. Evil people win their fights against good people. So the law is no longer fair, and justice does not win anymore.
The Lord Answers Habakkuk
5“Look at the other nations! Watch them, and you will be amazed. I will do something in your lifetime that will amaze you. You would not believe it even if you were told about it. 6I will make the Babylonians#1:6 Babylonians Literally, “Chaldeans,” a tribe of Arameans who gained control in Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar was from this tribe. a strong nation. They are cruel and powerful fighters. They will march across the earth. They will take houses and cities that don’t belong to them. 7The Babylonians will scare the other people. They will do what they want to do and go where they want to go. 8Their horses will be faster than leopards and more dangerous than wolves at sunset. Their horse soldiers will come from faraway places. They will attack their enemies quickly, like a hungry eagle swooping down from the sky. 9The one thing they all want to do is fight. Their armies will march fast like the wind in the desert. And the Babylonian soldiers will take many prisoners—as many as the grains of sand.
10“The Babylonian soldiers will laugh at the kings of other nations. Foreign rulers will be like jokes to them. The Babylonian soldiers will laugh at the cities with tall, strong walls. They will simply build dirt roads up to the top of the walls and easily defeat the cities. 11Then they will leave like the wind and go on to fight against other places. The only thing the Babylonians worship is their own strength.”
Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
12Lord, you are the one who lives forever!
You are my holy God who never dies!#1:12 Lord, you are … never dies Or “Lord, you have been my holy God forever! Surely we will not die.”
Lord, you created the Babylonians to do what must be done.
Our Rock, you created them to punish people.
13Your eyes are too good to look at evil.
You cannot stand to see people doing wrong.
So why do you permit such evil?
How can you watch while the wicked destroy people who are so much better?
14You made people like fish in the sea.
They are like little sea animals without a leader.
15The enemy catches all of them with hooks and nets.
The enemy catches them in his net and drags them in,
and the enemy is very happy with what he caught.
16His net helps him live like the rich
and enjoy the best food.
So the enemy worships his net.
He makes sacrifices and burns incense to honor his net.
17Will he continue to take riches with his net?
Will he continue destroying people without showing mercy?
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Habakkuk 1: ERV
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Habakkuk 1
1
Habakkuk Complains of Injustice
1The burden which Habak´kuk the prophet did see.
2O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! 3Why dost thou 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. 4Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.
The Chaldeans Will Punish Judah
5 #
Acts 13.41. Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. 6#2 Kgs 24.2. For, lo, I raise up the Chalde´ans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs. 7They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. 8Their 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 hasteth to eat. 9They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand. 10And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take it. 11Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.
Habakkuk Remonstrates with the Lord
12 Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. 13Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? 14and makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? 15They 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. 16Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. 17Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.