² How long, O Lord, must I cry for help
    while you do not listen?
I cry out to you, “Violence!”
    but you refuse to intervene.
³ Why do you make me witness wrongdoing
    and confront me with wickedness?
Destruction and violence confront me;
    strife is everywhere, and discord abounds.
⁴ As a result, the law becomes ineffective
    and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
    and judgment becomes perverted.
⁵ “Gaze upon the nations and see.
    You will be amazed, even astounded.
You will not believe it when you are told
    what I am doing in your days.
⁶ For I am stirring up the Chaldeans,
    that savage and unruly people,
who march across the whole earth
    to seize dwellings of other people.
⁷ They inspire fear and terror,
    and they impose justice and judgment
    according to their own standards.
⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards
    and more frightening than wolves at dusk.
Their horses gallop on,
    with riders advancing from far away,
    swooping like eagles to devour their prey.
⁹ They are all bent on violence,
    a horde moving steadily forward like an east wind;
    they scoop up captives like sand.
¹⁰ They scoff at kings,
    they despise rulers.
They regard every fortress with contempt,
    as they build earthen ramps to conquer it.
¹¹ Then they sweep past like the wind and are gone,
    as they ascribe their strength to their god.”
¹² “O Lord, are you not from everlasting,
    my holy God, you who are immortal?
You have marked them for judgment, O Lord;
    you, O Rock, have designated them for punishment.
¹³ Your eyes are too pure to gaze upon evil,
    and you cannot countenance wrongdoing.
Why then do you remain silent
    as you gaze on the treachery of the wicked,
watching them while they devour
    those who are more righteous?
¹⁴ You have made men like the fish of the sea,
    like crawling creatures without a ruler.
¹⁵ The wicked haul all of them up with a hook
    or catch them in a net.
They gather them up in a seine,
    and then rejoice and exult.
¹⁶ Therefore, the wicked offer sacrifice to their net
    and burn incense to their seine,
for, thanks to them, they live sumptuously
    and enjoy elegant food.
¹⁷ Shall they then be allowed
    to draw their sword unceasingly,
    and to slaughter nations without mercy?