² How long, O Yahweh, 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.
³ Why do you make me see wrongdoing?
    And why do you watch wickedness?
    Destruction and violence are in front of me.
    Quarrels and disputes arise.
⁴ That 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.

¹² Didn’t you exist before time began, O Yahweh, my Elohim, my Holy One?
    We will not die!
    O Yahweh, you have appointed the Babylonians to bring judgment.
    O Rock, you have destined them to correct us.
¹³ Your 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?
¹⁴ You make all people like the fish in the sea,
    like schools of sea life that have no ruler.
¹⁵ The Babylonians pull them all up with fishhooks,
    drag them away in nets,
        and gather them in dragnets.
            So they rejoice and are happy.
¹⁶ That is why they sacrifice to their nets and burn incense to their dragnets.
    They are rich and well fed because of them.
¹⁷ Will they keep on emptying their nets
    and always kill nations without mercy?