Habakkuk 2
2
1What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst.
I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon.
I’ll wait to see what God says,
how he’ll answer my complaint.
Full of Self, but Soul-Empty
2-3And then God answered: “Write this.
Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness
pointing to what’s coming.
It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!
And it doesn’t lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It’s on its way. It will come right on time.
* * *
4“Look at that man, bloated by self-importance—
full of himself but soul-empty.
But the person in right standing before God
through loyal and steady believing
is fully alive, really alive.
5-6a “Note well: Money deceives.
The arrogant rich don’t last.
They are more hungry for wealth
than the grave is for cadavers.
Like death, they always want more,
but the ‘more’ they get is dead bodies.
They are cemeteries filled with dead nations,
graveyards filled with corpses.
Don’t give people like this a second thought.
Soon the whole world will be taunting them:
6b-8 “‘Who do you think you are—
getting rich by stealing and extortion?
How long do you think
you can get away with this?’
Indeed, how long before your victims wake up,
stand up and make you the victim?
You’ve plundered nation after nation.
Now you’ll get a taste of your own medicine.
All the survivors are out to plunder you,
a payback for all your murders and massacres.
9-11“Who do you think you are—
recklessly grabbing and looting,
Living it up, acting like king of the mountain,
acting above it all, above trials and troubles?
You’ve engineered the ruin of your own house.
In ruining others you’ve ruined yourself.
You’ve undermined your foundations,
rotted out your own soul.
The bricks of your house will speak up and accuse you.
The woodwork will step forward with evidence.
12-14“Who do you think you are—
building a town by murder, a city with crime?
Don’t you know that God-of-the-Angel-Armies
makes sure nothing comes of that but ashes,
Makes sure the harder you work
at that kind of thing, the less you are?
Meanwhile the earth fills up
with awareness of God’s glory
as the waters cover the sea.
15-17“Who do you think you are—
inviting your neighbors to your drunken parties,
Giving them too much to drink,
roping them into your sexual orgies?
You thought you were having the time of your life.
Wrong! It’s a time of disgrace.
All the time you were drinking,
you were drinking from the cup of God’s wrath.
You’ll wake up holding your throbbing head, hung over—
hung over from Lebanon violence,
Hung over from animal massacres,
hung over from murder and mayhem,
From multiple violations
of place and people.
18-19“What’s the use of a carved god
so skillfully carved by its sculptor?
What good is a fancy cast god
when all it tells is lies?
What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker
who makes gods that can’t even talk?
Who do you think you are—
saying to a stick of wood, ‘Wake up,’
Or to a dumb stone, ‘Get up’?
Can they teach you anything about anything?
There’s nothing to them but surface.
There’s nothing on the inside.
20“But oh! God is in his holy Temple!
Quiet everyone—a holy silence. Listen!”
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Habakkuk 2: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Habukkuk 2
2
1On my charge I stand, and I station myself on a bulwark, and I watch to see what He doth speak against me, and what I do reply to my reproof.
2And Jehovah answereth me and saith: ‘Write a vision, and explain on the tables, That he may run who is reading it.
3For yet the vision [is] for a season, And it breatheth for the end, and doth not lie, If it tarry, wait for it, For surely it cometh, it is not late.
4Lo, a presumptuous one! Not upright is his soul within him, And the righteous by his stedfastness liveth.
5And also, because the wine [is] treacherous, A man is haughty, and remaineth not at home, Who hath enlarged as sheol his soul, And is as death that is not satisfied, And doth gather unto itself all the nations, And doth assemble unto itself all the peoples,
6Do not these — all of them — against him a simile taken up, And a moral of acute sayings for him, And say, Woe [to] him who is multiplying [what is] not his? Till when also is he multiplying to himself heavy pledges?
7Do not thy usurers instantly rise up, And those shaking thee awake up, And thou hast been for a spoil to them?
8Because thou hast spoiled many nations, Spoil thee do all the remnant of the peoples, Because of man's blood, and of violence [to] the land, [To] the city, and [to] all dwelling in it.
9Woe [to] him who is gaining evil gain for his house, To set on high his nest, To be delivered from the hand of evil,
10Thou hast counselled a shameful thing to thy house, To cut off many peoples, and sinful [is] thy soul.
11For a stone from the wall doth cry out, And a holdfast from the wood answereth it.
12Woe [to] him who is building a city by blood, And establishing a city by iniquity.
13Lo, is it not from Jehovah of Hosts And peoples are fatigued for fire, And nations for vanity are weary?
14For full is the earth of the knowledge of the honour of Jehovah, As waters cover [the bottom of] a sea.
15Woe [to] him who is giving drink to his neighbour, Pouring out thy bottle, and also making drunk, In order to look on their nakedness.
16Thou hast been filled — shame without honour, Drink thou also, and be uncircumcised, Turn round unto thee doth the cup of the right hand of Jehovah, And shameful spewing [is] on thine honour.
17For violence [to] Lebanon doth cover thee, And spoil of beasts doth affright them, Because of man's blood, and of violence [to] the land, [To] the city, and [to] all dwelling in it.
18What profit hath a graven image given That its former hath graven it? A molten image and teacher of falsehood, That trusted hath the former on his own formation — to make dumb idols?
19Woe [to] him who is saying to wood, ‘Awake,’ ‘Stir up,’ to a dumb stone, It a teacher! lo, it is overlaid — gold and silver, And there is no spirit in its midst.
20And Jehovah [is] in His holy temple, Be silent before Him, all the earth!
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