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
Habukkuk 1
1
1The burden that Habakkuk the prophet hath seen:
2Till when, O Jehovah, have I cried, And Thou dost not hear? I cry unto Thee — ‘Violence,’ and Thou dost not save.
3Why dost Thou shew me iniquity, And perversity dost cause to behold? And spoiling and violence [are] before me, And there is strife, and contention doth lift [itself] up,
4Therefore doth law cease, And judgment doth not go forth for ever, For the wicked is compassing the righteous, Therefore wrong judgment goeth forth.
5Look ye on nations, and behold and marvel greatly. For a work He is working in your days, Ye do not believe though it is declared.
6For, lo, I am raising up the Chaldeans, The bitter and hasty nation, That is going to the broad places of earth, To occupy tabernacles not its own.
7Terrible and fearful it [is], From itself its judgment and its excellency go forth.
8Swifter than leopards have been its horses, And sharper than evening wolves, And increased have its horsemen, Even its horsemen from afar come in, They fly as an eagle, hasting to consume.
9Wholly for violence it doth come in, Their faces swallowing up the east wind, And it doth gather as the sand a captivity.
10And at kings it doth scoff, And princes [are] a laughter to it, At every fenced place it doth laugh, And it heapeth up dust, and captureth it.
11Then passed on hath the spirit, Yea, he doth transgress, And doth ascribe this his power to his god.
12Art not Thou of old, O Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? We do not die, O Jehovah, For judgment Thou hast appointed it, And, O Rock, for reproof Thou hast founded it.
13Purer of eyes than to behold evil, To look on perverseness Thou art not able, Why dost Thou behold the treacherous? Thou keepest silent when the wicked Doth swallow the more righteous than he,
14And Thou makest man as fishes of the sea, As a creeping thing — none ruling over him.
15Each of them with a hook he hath brought up, He doth catch it in his net, and gathereth it in his drag, Therefore he doth joy and rejoice.
16Therefore he doth sacrifice to his net, And doth make perfume to his drag, For by them [is] his portion fertile, and his food fat.
17Doth he therefore empty his net, And continually to slay nations spare not?
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