1:1 The burden or oracle (the thing to be lifted up) which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
1:2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and You will not hear? Or cry out to You of violence and You will not save?
1:3 Why do You show me iniquity and wrong, and Yourself look upon or cause me to see perverseness and trouble? For destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention arises.
1:4 Therefore the law is slackened and justice and a righteous sentence never go forth, for the [hostility of the] wicked surrounds the [uncompromisingly] righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.
1:5 Look around [you, Habakkuk, replied the Lord] among the nations and see! And be astonished! Astounded! For I am putting into effect a work in your days [such] that you would not believe it if it were told you.
1:6 For behold, I am rousing up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation who march through the breadth of the earth to take possession of dwelling places that do not belong to them.
1:7 [The Chaldeans] are terrible and dreadful; their justice and dignity proceed [only] from themselves.
1:8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards and are fiercer than the evening wolves, and their horsemen spread themselves and press on proudly; yes, their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle that hastens to devour.
1:9 They all come for violence; their faces turn eagerly forward, and they gather prisoners together like sand.
1:10 They scoff at kings, and rulers are a derision to them; they ridicule every stronghold, for they heap up dust [for earth mounds] and take it.
1:11 Then they sweep by like a wind and pass on, and they load themselves with guilt, [as do all men] whose own power is their god.
1:12 Are not You from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed [the Chaldean] to execute [Your] judgment, and You, O Rock, have established him for chastisement and correction.
1:13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and can not look [inactively] upon injustice. Why then do You look upon the plunderer? Why are you silent when the wicked one destroys him who is more righteous than [the Chaldean oppressor] is?
1:14 Why do You make men like the fish of the sea, like reptiles and creeping things that have no ruler [and are defenseless against their foes]?
1:15 [The Chaldean] brings all of them up with his hook; he catches and drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is in high spirits.
1:16 Therefore he sacrifices [offerings] to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because from them he lives luxuriously and his food is plentiful and rich.
1:17 Shall he therefore continue to empty his net and mercilessly go on slaying the nations forever?
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