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.

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16 You will be filled with shame(A) instead of glory.(B)
    Now it is your turn! Drink(C) and let your nakedness be exposed[a]!(D)
The cup(E) from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you,
    and disgrace will cover your glory.
17 The violence(F) you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
    and your destruction of animals will terrify you.(G)
For you have shed human blood;(H)
    you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.

18 “Of what value(I) is an idol(J) carved by a craftsman?
    Or an image(K) that teaches lies?
For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation;
    he makes idols that cannot speak.(L)

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Footnotes

  1. Habakkuk 2:16 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls, Aquila, Vulgate and Syriac (see also Septuagint) and stagger