Habakkuk 1

Tree of Life Version

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.^[b]
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.
⁷ Dreadful and terrifying,
Its justice and dignity derive from itself.
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,^[c] swooping down to eat.
⁹ All of them come for violence—
an assembling of faces to the east.
He gathers captives like sand.
¹⁰ He scoffs at kings,
and rulers are a joke to him.
He laughs at every stronghold—
he heaps up dirt and takes it.
¹¹ Then a wind sweeps through and passes on.
He is guilty—This, his strength, is his god.”

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.
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?
¹⁴ You made man like the fish of the sea,
like a creeping thing—with no one ruling over him.
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.
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.
¹⁷ Will he empty his net for this reason
—continually slaying nations—with no compassion?