Habakkuk 1:1-11

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁵ Look at the nations, and see!
    Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days
    that you would not believe if you were told.
⁶ For I am rousing the Chaldeans,
    that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth
    to seize dwellings not their own.
⁷ Dread and fearsome are they;
    their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,
    more menacing than wolves at dusk;
    their horses charge.
Their horsemen come from far away;
    they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
⁹ They all come for violence,
    with faces pressing^[a] forward;
    they gather captives like sand.
¹⁰ At kings they scoff,
    and of rulers they make sport.
They laugh at every fortress,
    and heap up earth to take it.
¹¹ Then they sweep by like the wind;
    they transgress and become guilty;
    their own might is their god!