Habakkuk 1
1
Habakkuk’s Vision
1The divine revelation that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
Habakkuk’s Question
2How long, O Lord, am I to cry for help,
but you will not listen?
I cry out to you, “There’s violence!”
yet you will not come to the rescue.
3Why do you make me see wrongdoing?
And why do you watch wickedness?
Destruction and violence are in front of me.
Quarrels and disputes arise.
4That is why your teaching is numbed,
and justice is never carried out.
Wicked people surround righteous people
so that when justice is carried out, it’s perverted.
The LORD’s Answer
5Look among the nations and watch.
Be amazed and astonished.
I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe even if it were reported to you.
6I am going to send the Babylonians,
that fierce and reckless nation.
They will march throughout the earth
to take possession of lands that don’t belong to them.
7They will be terrifying and fearsome.
They will carry out their own kind of justice and honor.
8Their horses will be faster than leopards
and quicker than wolves in the evening.
Their riders will gallop along proudly.
Their riders will come from far away.
They will fly like an eagle that swoops down for its prey.
9They will all come for violence.
Every face will be directed forward.
They will gather prisoners like sand.
10They will make fun of kings and treat rulers as a joke.
They will laugh at every fortified city
and build a dirt ramp to capture it.
11They will move quickly and pass through like the wind.
So they will be guilty,
because their own strength is their god.
Habakkuk’s Question
12Didn’t you exist before time began, O Lord, my God, my Holy One?
We will not die!
O Lord, you have appointed the Babylonians to bring judgment.
O Rock, you have destined them to correct us.
13Your eyes are too pure to look at evil.
You can’t watch wickedness.
Why do you keep watching treacherous people?
Why are you silent when wicked people swallow those
who are more righteous than they are?
14You make all people like the fish in the sea,
like schools of sea life that have no ruler.
15The Babylonians pull them all up with fishhooks,
drag them away in nets,
and gather them in dragnets.
So they rejoice and are happy.
16That is why they sacrifice to their nets and burn incense to their dragnets.
They are rich and well fed because of them.
17Will they keep on emptying their nets
and always kill nations without mercy?
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Habakkuk 1: GW
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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
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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