1:2 How long, Adonai, have I cried for help, yet You do not hear? I cry out to You—‘Violence!’ yet You do not deliver.
1:3 Why do You show me wickedness, and why must I behold mischief? Yes, devastation and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention arises.
1:4 Therefore, Torah has no effect, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked encircle the righteous Therefore justice comes out perverted.
1:5 “Look among the nations! Observe! Astonish yourself! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days. You will not believe it if it were told.
1:6 For I am about to raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter, impetuous nation, marching all over the land, to seize dwellings not its own.
1:7 Dreadful and terrifying, Its justice and dignity derive from itself.
1:8 Its horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Its horsemen come galloping. Its horsemen are coming from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to eat.
1:9 All of them come for violence— an assembling of faces to the east. He gathers captives like sand.
1:10 He scoffs at kings, and rulers are a joke to him. He laughs at every stronghold— he heaps up dirt and takes it.
1:11 Then a wind sweeps through and passes on. He is guilty—This, his strength, is his god.”
1:12 Are not You from antiquity— Adonai my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Adonai, You have ordained him for judgment— as You, O Rock, have established him to chasten.
1:13 With eyes too pure to see evil You cannot look at such trouble! Why do You look at the treacherous? Why do You remain silent when a wicked one swallows up those more righteous than him?
1:14 You made man like the fish of the sea, like a creeping thing—with no one ruling over him.
1:15 He brings up all with hook in jaw, drags away in his dragnet, or gathers with his fishing-net. Therefore he rejoices with glee.
1:16 Therefore he sacrifices to his dragnet, and offers incense to his fishing-net. For through them his portion is rich and his food abundant.
1:17 Will he empty his net for this reason —continually slaying nations—with no compassion?
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