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.
Habakkuk 2
2
The Righteous Will Live by Faith
1I will stand at my post,
and station myself on the rampart.
And I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
2Then Yahweh answered me and said,
“Write the vision and make it plain on the tablet
so that it might be read quickly.#Literally “it might run reading upon it”
3For there is yet a vision for the appointed time;
it will give witness to the end, and it will not lie.
If it tarries, wait for it,
for it will surely come and not delay.
4Look! His spirit within him is puffed up;
it is not upright.
But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.
5How much less#Literally “And moreover because” the defiant;#“Defiant” follows the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QpHab)
the arrogant, treacherous man?
He who broadens his throat like Sheol,
and who, like death, is not satisfied,
and who gathers to himself all the nations,
and harvested for himself all the peoples,
will not succeed.
6Shall not all of these take up a taunt against him,
with ridicule and riddles against him, saying,
‘Woe to him who heaps up what is not his’?
For how long?
And, ‘Woe to him who makes himself heavy with pledges’?
7Will not your creditors suddenly rise up
and awaken those who make you tremble?
Then you shall be as plunder for them.
8Because you plundered many nations,
all the remaining nations will plunder you
on account of the blood of humanity
and violence against the land,
and against cities and all who live in them.
9Woe to him who obtains profit from evil gain for his house,
to set his nest on high,
to be saved from the hand of misfortune!
10You have plotted shame for your house,
cutting off many peoples
and sinning against your life.
11For the stone will cry out from the wall,
and the plaster from the wood will answer it.
12Woe to him who builds a city by bloodguilt,
and who founds a city by wickedness!
13Look! Is it not from Yahweh of hosts
that people labor for mere fire,
and nations exhaust themselves for mere vanity?
14For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh,
like the waters covering the sea.
15Woe to him who gives a drink to his neighbors,
pouring out your wrath and also making them drunk
in order to see their nakedness!
16You will be sated with shame rather than glory.
Drink also yourself, and expose yourself!
The cup of the right hand of Yahweh
will come around upon you
and disgrace upon your glory.
17For the violence of Lebanon will cover you,
and the destruction of wild animals will shatter them
on account of the blood of humanity,
and the violence against the land,
against a city and all the inhabitants in it.
18What value is an idol
when its carver has fashioned it,
a molten idol, a teacher of lies?
For he who fashioned his creation trusts in it,
though making mute idols!
19Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Wake up!’
And to a lifeless stone, ‘Arise!’
Can he teach?
Look, it is covered with gold and silver,
and there is no breath within it.
20But Yahweh is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth be silent before him.”
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