The Prophet Questions God’s Judgments

The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.

The Prophet’s Question

O Lord, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, “Violence!” And You will not save.

Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises.

Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

Their horses also are swifter than leopards, And more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; Their cavalry comes from afar; They fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.

“They all come for violence; Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand.

They scoff at kings, And princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.

The Prophet’s Second Question

Are You not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction.

Why do You make men like fish of the sea, Like creeping things that have no ruler over them?

Therefore they sacrifice to their net, And burn incense to their dragnet; Because by them their share is sumptuous And their food plentiful.

Shall they therefore empty their net, And continue to slay nations without pity?

The Just Shall Live by Faith

I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected.

The Just Live by Faith

Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

“Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.

Woe to the Wicked

“Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, He is a proud man, And he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell, And he is like death, and cannot be satisfied, He gathers to himself all nations And heaps up for himself all peoples.

“Will not all these take up a proverb against him, And a taunting riddle against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases What is not his—how long? And to him who loads himself with many pledges’?

Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty.

Because you have plundered many nations, All the remnant of the people shall plunder you, Because of men’s blood And the violence of the land and the city, And of all who dwell in it.

“Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house, That he may set his nest on high, That he may be delivered from the power of disaster!

You give shameful counsel to your house, Cutting off many peoples, And sin against your soul.

For the stone will cry out from the wall, And the beam from the timbers will answer it.

For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea.

You are filled with shame instead of glory. You also—drink! And be exposed as uncircumcised! The cup of the Lord’s right hand will be turned against you, And utter shame will be on your glory.

“What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, The molded image, a teacher of lies, That the maker of its mold should trust in it, To make mute idols?