1 The burden or oracle (the thing to be lifted up) which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

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?

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.

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.

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.^(A)

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.^(B)

⁷ [The Chaldeans] are terrible and dreadful; their justice and dignity proceed [only] from themselves.

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.

⁹ They all come for violence; their faces turn eagerly forward, and they gather prisoners together like sand.

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.

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.

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.^(C)

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?

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]?

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.

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.

¹⁷ Shall he therefore continue to empty his net and mercilessly go on slaying the nations forever?

¹³ Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?

¹⁴ But [the time is coming when] the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.^(A)

¹⁵ Woe to him who gives his neighbors drink, who pours out your bottle to them and adds to it your poisonous and blighting wrath and also makes them drunk, that you may look on their stripped condition and pour out foul shame [on their glory]!

¹⁶ You [yourself] will be filled with shame and contempt instead of glory. Drink also and be like an uncircumcised [heathen]! The cup [of wrath] in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you [O destroyer], and foul shame shall be upon your own glory!^(B)

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will cover and overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals [which the violence frightened away] will terrify you on account of men’s blood and the violence done to the land, to the city and all its inhabitants.

¹⁸ What profit is the graven image when its maker has formed it? It is only a molten image and a teacher of lies. For the maker trusts in his own creations [as his gods] when he makes dumb idols.

¹⁹ Woe to him who says to the wooden image, Awake! and to the dumb stone, Arise, teach! [Yet, it cannot, for] behold, it is laid over with gold and silver and there is no breath at all inside it!

²⁰ But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth hush and keep silence before Him.^(C)

¹³ But they sent some of the Pharisees and of the Herodians to Him for the purpose of entrapping Him in His speech.

¹⁴ And they came up and said to Him, Teacher, we know that You are ^[a]sincere and what You profess to be, that You cannot lie, and that You have no personal bias for anyone; for You are not influenced by partiality and have no ^[b]regard for anyone’s external condition or position, but in [and on the basis of] truth You teach the way of God. Is it lawful (permissible and right) to give tribute (^[c]poll taxes) to Caesar or not?

¹⁵ Should we pay [them] or should we not pay [them]? But knowing their hypocrisy, He asked them, Why do you put Me to the test? Bring Me a coin (a denarius), so I may see it.

¹⁶ And they brought [Him one]. Then He asked them, Whose image (picture) is this? And whose superscription (^[d]title)? They said to Him, Caesar’s.

¹⁷ Jesus said to them, Pay to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to ^[e]God the things that are God’s. And they ^[f]stood marveling and greatly amazed at Him.

¹⁸ And [some] Sadducees came to Him, [of that party] who say there is no resurrection, and they asked Him a question, saying,

¹⁹ Teacher, Moses gave us [a law] that if a man’s brother died, leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.^(A)

²⁰ Now there were seven brothers; the first one took a wife and died, leaving no children.

²¹ And the second [brother] married her, and died, leaving no children; and the third did the same;

²² And all seven, leaving no children. Last of all, the woman died also.

²³ Now in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? For the seven were married to her.

²⁴ Jesus said to them, Is not this where you wander out of the way and go wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?

²⁵ For when they arise from among the dead, [men] do not marry nor are [women] given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

²⁶ But concerning the dead being raised—have you not read in the book of Moses, [in the passage] about the [burning] bush, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?^(B)

²⁷ He is not the God of [the] dead, but of [the] living! You are very wrong.

²⁸ Then one of the scribes came up and listened to them disputing with one another, and, noticing that Jesus answered them fitly and admirably, he asked Him, Which commandment is first and most important of all [^[g]in its nature]?

²⁹ Jesus answered, The first and principal one of all commands is: Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord;

³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God ^[h]out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your ^[i]life) and out of and with all your mind (with ^[j]your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. ^[k]This is the first and principal commandment.^(C)

³¹ The second is like it and is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.^(D)

³² And the scribe said to Him, Excellently and fitly and admirably answered, Teacher! You have said truly that He is One, and there is no other but Him;

³³ And to love Him out of and with all the heart and with all the understanding [with the ^[a]faculty of quick apprehension and intelligence and keenness of discernment] and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.^(A)

³⁴ And when Jesus saw that he answered intelligently (discreetly and ^[b]having his wits about him), He said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that no one ventured or dared to ask Him any further question.

³⁵ And as Jesus taught in [a ^[c]porch or court of] the temple, He said, How can the scribes say that the Christ is David’s Son?

³⁶ David himself, [inspired] in the Holy Spirit, declared, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies [a footstool] under Your feet.^(B)

³⁷ David himself calls Him Lord; so how can it be that He is his Son? Now the great mass of the people heard [Jesus] gladly [listening to Him with delight].

³⁸ And in [the course of] His teaching, He said, Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and [to get] greetings in the marketplaces [public forums],

³⁹ And [have] the front seats in the synagogues and the ^[d]chief couches (places of honor) at feasts,

⁴⁰ Who devour widows’ houses and to cover it up make long prayers. They will receive the heavier [sentence of] condemnation.

⁴¹ And He sat down opposite the treasury and saw how the crowd was casting money into the treasury. Many rich [people] were throwing in large sums.

⁴² And a widow who was poverty-stricken came and put in two copper mites [the smallest of coins], which together make ^[e]half of a cent.