Habakkuk 1-3
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 1
1 The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision.
Habakkuk’s First Complaint
2 How long, O Lord, must I cry for help[a]
and you do not listen?(A)
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
and you do not intervene?
3 Why do you let me see iniquity?
why do you simply gaze at evil?
Destruction and violence are before me;(B)
there is strife and discord.
4 This is why the law is numb[b]
and justice never comes,
For the wicked surround the just;(C)
this is why justice comes forth perverted.
God’s Response
5 [c]Look over the nations and see!
Be utterly amazed!
For a work is being done in your days
that you would not believe, were it told.(D)
6 For now I am raising up the Chaldeans,(E)
that bitter and impulsive people,
Who march the breadth of the land
to take dwellings not their own.
7 They are terrifying and dreadful;
their right and their exalted position are of their own making.
8 Swifter than leopards are their horses,
and faster than desert wolves.
Their horses spring forward;
they come from far away;
they fly like an eagle hastening to devour.
9 All of them come for violence,
their combined onslaught, a stormwind
to gather up captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings,
ridicule princes;
They laugh at any fortress,
heap up an earthen ramp, and conquer it.
11 Then they sweep through like the wind and vanish—
they make their own strength their god![d]
Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
12 Are you not from of old, O Lord,
my holy God, immortal?(F)
Lord, you have appointed them for judgment,[e]
O Rock,[f] you have set them in place to punish!
13 Your eyes are too pure to look upon wickedness,
and the sight of evil you cannot endure.
Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence
while the wicked devour those more just than themselves?
14 You have made mortals like the fish in the sea,
like creeping things without a leader.
15 He[g] brings them all up with a hook,
and hauls them away with his net;
He gathers them in his fishing net,
and then rejoices and exults.
16 Therefore he makes sacrifices to his net,[h]
and burns incense to his fishing net;
For thanks to them his portion is rich,
and his meal lavish.
17 Shall they, then, keep on drawing his sword
to slaughter nations without mercy?
Chapter 2
1 I will stand at my guard post,
and station myself upon the rampart;(G)
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what answer he will give to my complaint.
God’s Response
2 Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write down the vision;[i](H)
Make it plain upon tablets,
so that the one who reads it may run.
3 For the vision is a witness for the appointed time,
a testimony to the end; it will not disappoint.
If it delays, wait for it,
it will surely come, it will not be late.
4 See, the rash have no integrity;
but the just one who is righteous because of faith shall live.[j](I)
Sayings Against Tyrants
5 [k]Indeed wealth is treacherous;
a proud man does not succeed.
He who opens wide his throat like Sheol,
and is insatiable as death,
Who gathers to himself all the nations,
and collects for himself all the peoples—
6 Shall not all these take up a taunt against him,(J)
and make a riddle about him, saying:
Ah! you who store up what is not yours
—how long can it last!—
you who load yourself down with collateral.
7 Will your debtors[l] not rise suddenly?
Will they not awake, those who make you tremble?
You will become their spoil!
8 Because you plundered many nations,
the remaining peoples shall plunder you;
Because of the shedding of human blood,
and violence done to the land,
to the city and to all who live in it.
9 Ah! you who pursue evil gain for your household,
setting your nest on high
to escape the reach of misfortune!
10 You have devised shame for your household,
cutting off many peoples, forfeiting your own life;
11 For the stone in the wall shall cry out,[m]
and the beam in the frame shall answer it!
12 Ah! you who build a city by bloodshed,
and who establish a town with injustice!(K)
13 Is this not from the Lord of hosts:
peoples toil[n] for what the flames consume,
and nations grow weary for nothing!
14 But the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the Lord’s glory,
just as the water covers the sea.(L)
15 Ah! you who give your neighbors
the cup of your wrath to drink, and make them drunk,
until their nakedness is seen!(M)
16 You are filled with shame instead of glory;
drink, you too, and stagger!
The cup from the Lord’s right hand shall come around to you,
and utter shame shall cover your glory.
17 For the violence done to Lebanon[o] shall cover you,(N)
and the destruction of the animals shall terrify you;
Because of the shedding of human blood,
and violence done to the land,
to the city and to all who live in it.
18 Of what use is the carved image,[p]
that its maker should carve it?
Or the molten image, the lying oracle,
that its very maker should trust in it,
and make mute idols?
19 Ah! you who say to wood, “Awake!”
to silent stone, “Arise!”
Can any such thing give oracles?(O)
It is only overlaid with gold and silver,
there is no breath in it at all.
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple;
silence before him, all the earth!(P)
Chapter 3
Hymn About God’s Reign
1 Prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet. According to Shigyonot.[q]
2 O Lord, I have heard your renown,
and am in awe, O Lord, of your work.
In the course of years revive it,[r]
in the course of years make yourself known;
in your wrath remember compassion!
His glory covered the heavens,
and his praise filled the earth;
4 his splendor spread like the light.
He raised his horns high,(R)
he rejoiced on the day of his strength.
5 Before him went pestilence,
and plague[u] followed in his steps.
6 He stood and shook the earth;
he looked and made the nations tremble.
Ancient mountains were shattered,
the age-old hills bowed low,
age-old orbits[v] collapsed.
7 The tents of Cushan trembled,
the pavilions of the land of Midian.[w]
8 Was your anger against the rivers, O Lord?
your wrath against the rivers,
your rage against the sea,[x](S)
That you mounted your steeds,
your victorious chariot?
9 You readied your bow,
you filled your bowstring with arrows.
Selah
You split the earth with rivers;
10 at the sight of you the mountains writhed.
The clouds poured down water;
the deep roared loudly.
The sun[y] forgot to rise,
11 the moon left its lofty station,(T)
At the light of your flying arrows,
at the gleam of your flashing spear.
12 In wrath you marched on the earth,
in fury you trampled the nations.
13 You came forth to save your people,
to save your anointed one.[z]
You crushed the back of the wicked,
you laid him bare, bottom to neck.
Selah
14 [aa]You pierced his head with your shafts;
his princes you scattered with your stormwind,
as food for the poor in unknown places.
15 You trampled the sea with your horses
amid the churning of the deep waters.
16 I hear, and my body trembles;
at the sound, my lips quiver.
Decay invades my bones,
my legs tremble beneath me.
I await the day of distress
that will come upon the people who attack us.
17 For though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit appears on the vine,
Though the yield of the olive fails
and the terraces produce no nourishment,
Though the flocks disappear from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord
and exult in my saving God.
19 God, my Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet swift as those of deer
and enables me to tread upon the heights.[ab](U)
For the leader; with stringed instruments.
Footnotes
- 1:2–4 The prophet complains about God’s apparent disregard for Judah’s internal evils in language that echoes the preaching of prophets like Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.
- 1:4 The law is numb: because the Lord has been silent, the Law, whether in the form of the scroll found in the Temple in the time of Josiah (2 Kgs 22) or in the form of divine instruction given by priests and prophets, has proved ineffective and so appeared to be cold, unreceptive, and powerless. For the Law to be credible, the Lord must see to it that the wicked are punished and the just rewarded.
- 1:5–7 Habakkuk interprets the Babylonian defeat of Egypt at Carchemish (605 B.C.) as the answer to his complaint: the Lord will send the Chaldean empire against Judah as punishment for their sins.
- 1:11 The primary aim of military campaigns by ancient Near Eastern rulers was usually the gathering of spoils and the collection of tribute rather than the annexation of territory. However, in the eighth century B.C., the Assyrians began to administer many conquered territories as provinces.
- 1:12–2:1 Appointed them for judgment: this complaint is directed against the violent Babylonians, the very nation God chose to punish Judah.
- 1:12 Rock: an ancient title celebrating the Lord’s power and fidelity; cf. Dt 32:4; Is 26:4; 30:29; Ps 18:3, 32, 47; 95:1.
- 1:15 He: the Babylonian king (cf. vv. 6, 13), who easily conquers other nations and treats them as objects for his entertainment and enrichment.
- 1:16 He makes sacrifices to his net: the leader attributes victory to the military weapons he wields; he and his weapons have won victory, not any god.
- 2:2 Write down the vision: the vision is written down for two reasons: so that a herald may carry and proclaim its contents to the people, and so that the reception of the vision and its truth can be verified by its fulfillment (v. 3).
- 2:4 The just one who is righteous because of faith shall live: the faithful survive the impending doom because they trust in God’s justice and wait patiently for God to carry it out. Several New Testament passages cite these words (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; cf. Hb 10:38) to confirm the teaching that people receive justification and supernatural life through faith in Christ.
- 2:5 This verse describes any tyrant who, like the Babylonians, possesses insatiable greed.
- 2:7 Debtors: the Hebrew term can mean either debtors or creditors, and this double meaning is likely intended: the debtor nations rise up against their creditor nation and become its creditors in the reversal of affairs described here.
- 2:11–12 The palaces, built at the expense of gross injustice (vv. 6–10), call down vengeance on their builders. This is typical prophetic language for the condemnation of social crimes within Israel and Judah.
- 2:13 Peoples toil: those oppressed by the Babylonians do not benefit from their work. Verses 13–14 break the pattern of reversal in the oracles that precede and may have been added by an editor.
- 2:17 The violence done to Lebanon: the destruction of the cedar forests of Lebanon, used in lavish building projects by the great conquerors; cf. Is 14:8; 37:24. The destruction of the animals: the killing off of the wild animals through excessive hunting by the same conquerors; cf. Bar 3:16.
- 2:18–20 Idolatrous worship is here shown to be folly by contrasting idols with the majesty of the one true God. Verse 18 may originally have followed v. 19, since the term “Ah!” begins each new saying in this section.
- 3:1 Shigyonot: a Hebrew technical term no longer understood, but probably a musical notation regarding the following hymn. This term, the references to the leader and stringed instruments at the end of the hymn (v. 19), and the use of the term selah in vv. 3, 9, and 13 are found elsewhere in the Bible only in the Psalter, and they indicate that, like the psalms, this poem was once used in worship.
- 3:2 In the course of years revive it: a plea for God to renew the works of the past.
- 3:3–15 Cf. the theophanies in Dt 33:2–3; Jgs 5:4–5; Ps 18:8–16; 68:8–9; 77:17–21; 97:1–5; Na 1:3–6, etc. Conventional language is employed to describe the appearance of the Lord, as in Ex 19:16–19.
- 3:3 Teman: a region in Edom. Mount Paran: in the territory of Edom, or the northern part of the Sinai peninsula.
- 3:5 Pestilence…plague: these may be figures who are part of the heavenly armies God leads into battle.
- 3:6 Age-old orbits: the regular paths through the skies of heavenly bodies are disrupted at the appearance of the divine warrior, as are the ancient mountains on earth. Such cosmic disruption is typical of divine appearances (Ps 18:8; Na 1:5).
- 3:7 Cushan…Midian: the inhabitants of the area southeast of Judah where the divine march originates (Teman, Mount Paran), who are shaken, together with the cosmos, at God’s appearance.
- 3:8 Rivers…sea: the forces of chaos personified as yam (Sea) and nahar (River) try to destroy the order God imposed at creation by sweeping past their boundaries and covering the earth. Their mention here and in v. 15 emphasizes that God is both creator and deliverer, subduing historical enemies and cosmic forces.
- 3:10–11 Sun…moon: heavenly figures who, like pestilence and plague (v. 5), serve in God’s army, or are startled at God’s appearance, as are the ancient constellations (v. 6).
- 3:13 Your anointed one: the theocratic king, the head of God’s people. The back of the wicked: this may refer both to God’s cosmic enemy, River/Sea, and to the leader of Israel’s historical enemy.
- 3:14 The last two lines of this verse are obscure in Hebrew and difficult to translate.
- 3:19 The heights: this term can also mean “backs” and may be an image of conquest over the poet’s foes.
Revelation 15
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 15
The Seven Last Plagues. 1 [a]Then I saw in heaven another sign,[b] great and awe-inspiring: seven angels with the seven last plagues, for through them God’s fury is accomplished.
2 Then I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire.[c] On the sea of glass were standing those who had won the victory over the beast and its image and the number that signified its name. They were holding God’s harps,(A) 3 and they sang the song of Moses,[d] the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:
“Great and wonderful are your works,
Lord God almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
O king of the nations.(B)
4 Who will not fear you, Lord,
or glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All the nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”(C)
5 [e]After this I had another vision. The temple that is the heavenly tent of testimony[f] opened, 6 and the seven angels with the seven plagues came out of the temple. They were dressed in clean white linen, with a gold sash around their chests.(D) 7 One of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven gold bowls filled with the fury of God, who lives forever and ever. 8 Then the temple became so filled with the smoke from God’s glory and might that no one could enter it until the seven plagues of the seven angels had been accomplished.(E)
Footnotes
- 15:1–16:21 The seven bowls, the third and last group of seven after the seven seals and the seven trumpets, foreshadow the final cataclysm. Again, the series is introduced by a heavenly prelude, in which the victors over the beast sing the canticle of Moses (Rev 15:2–4).
- 15:1–4 A vision of the victorious martyrs precedes the vision of woe in Rev 15:5–16:21; cf. Rev 7:9–12.
- 15:2 Mingled with fire: fire symbolizes the sanctity involved in facing God, reflected in the trials that have prepared the victorious Christians or in God’s wrath.
- 15:3 The song of Moses: the song that Moses and the Israelites sang after their escape from the oppression of Egypt (Ex 15:1–18). The martyrs have escaped from the oppression of the Devil. Nations: many other Greek manuscripts and versions read “ages.”
- 15:5–8 Seven angels receive the bowls of God’s wrath.
- 15:5 Tent of testimony: the name of the meeting tent in the Greek text of Ex 40. Cf. 2 Mc 2:4–7.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.