Habakkuk 1
1
1This is the message that the LORD revealed to the prophet Habakkuk.
Habakkuk Complains of Injustice
2O LORD, how long must I call for help before you listen, before you save us from violence? 3Why do you make me see such trouble? How can you endure to look on such wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are all round me, and there is fighting and quarrelling everywhere. 4The law is weak and useless, and justice is never done. Evil people get the better of the righteous, and so justice is perverted.
The LORD's Reply
5 #
Acts 13.41
Then the LORD said to his people, “Keep watching the nations round you, and you will be astonished at what you see. I am going to do something that you will not believe when you hear about it. 6#2 Kgs 24.2I am bringing the Babylonians to power, those fierce, restless people. They are marching out across the world to conquer other lands. 7They spread fear and terror, and in their pride they are a law to themselves.
8“Their horses are faster than leopards, fiercer than hungry wolves. Their horsemen come riding from distant lands; their horses paw the ground. They come swooping down like eagles attacking their prey.
9“Their armies advance in violent conquest, and everyone is terrified as they approach.#1.9 Probable text and everyone… approach; Hebrew unclear. Their captives are as numerous as grains of sand. 10They treat kings with contempt and laugh at high officials. No fortress can stop them — they pile up earth against it and capture it. 11Then they sweep on like the wind and are gone, these men whose power is their god.”
Habakkuk Complains to the LORD Again
12 LORD, from the very beginning you are God. You are my God, holy and eternal. LORD, my God and protector, you have chosen the Babylonians and made them strong so that they can punish us. 13But how can you stand these treacherous, evil men? Your eyes are too holy to look at evil, and you cannot stand the sight of people doing wrong. So why are you silent while they destroy people who are more righteous than they are?
14How can you treat people like fish or like a swarm of insects that have no ruler to direct them? 15The Babylonians catch people with hooks, as though they were fish. They drag them off in nets and shout for joy over their catch! 16They even worship their nets and offer sacrifices to them, because their nets provide them with the best of everything.
17Are they going to use their swords for ever and keep on destroying nations without mercy?
Currently Selected:
Habakkuk 1: GNBDK
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Good News Bible with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.
Habacuc (Habakkuk) 1
1
1The burden that Habacuc the prophet saw.
2How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? shall I cry out to thee suffering violence, and thou wilt not save?
3Why hast thou shewn me iniquity and grievance, to see rapine and injustice before me? and there is a judgment, but opposition is more powerful.
4Therefore the law is torn in pieces, and judgment cometh not to the end: because the wicked prevaileth against the just, therefore wrong judgment goeth forth.
5Behold ye among the nations, and see: wonder, and be astonished: for a work is done in your days, which no man will believe when it shall be told.
6For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, marching upon the breadth of the earth, to possess the dwelling places that are not their own.
7They are dreadful, and terrible: from themselves shall their judgment, and their burden proceed.
8Their horses are lighter than leopards, and swifter than evening wolves; and their horsemen shall be spread abroad: for their horsemen shall come from afar, they shall fly as an eagle that maketh haste to eat.
9They shall all come to the prey, their face is like a burning wind: and they shall gather together captives as the sand.
10And their prince shall triumph over kings, and princes shall be his laughingstock: and he shall laugh at every strong hold, and shall cast up a mount, and shall take it.
11Then shall his spirit be changed, and he shall pass, and fall: this is his strength of his god.
12Wast thou not from the beginning, O Lord my God, my holy one, and we shall not die? Lord, thou hast appointed him for judgment: and made him strong for correction.
13Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest thou upon them that do unjust things, and holdest thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more just than himself?
14And thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping things that have no ruler.
15He lifted up all them with his hook, he drew them in his drag, and gathered them into his net: for this he will be glad and rejoice.
16Therefore will he offer victims to his drag, and he will sacrifice to his net: because through them his portion is made fat, and his meat dainty.
17For this cause therefore he spreadeth his net, and will not spare continually to slay the nations.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.