Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
New Living Translation
Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
12 O Lord my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal—
surely you do not plan to wipe us out?
O Lord, our Rock, you have sent these Babylonians to correct us,
to punish us for our many sins.
13 But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil.
Will you wink at their treachery?
Should you be silent while the wicked
swallow up people more righteous than they?
14 Are we only fish to be caught and killed?
Are we only sea creatures that have no leader?
15 Must we be strung up on their hooks
and caught in their nets while they rejoice and celebrate?
16 Then they will worship their nets
and burn incense in front of them.
“These nets are the gods who have made us rich!”
they will claim.
17 Will you let them get away with this forever?
Will they succeed forever in their heartless conquests?
2 I will climb up to my watchtower
and stand at my guardpost.
There I will wait to see what the Lord says
and how he[a] will answer my complaint.
Footnotes
- 2:1 As in Syriac version; Hebrew reads I.
Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
12 Are you not from of old,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
You[a] shall not die.
O Lord, you have marked them for judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.(A)
13 Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous
and are silent when the wicked swallow
those more righteous than they?(B)
14 You have made people like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.(C)
15 He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his seine,
so he rejoices and exults.(D)
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his seine,
for by them his portion is lavish,
and his food is rich.
17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and destroying nations without mercy?(E)
God’s Reply to the Prophet’s Complaint
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.