Beginning

1 The burden or oracle (the thing to be lifted up) which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

² O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and You will not hear? Or cry out to You of violence and You will not save?

³ Why do You show me iniquity and wrong, and Yourself look upon or cause me to see perverseness and trouble? For destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention arises.

⁴ Therefore the law is slackened and justice and a righteous sentence never go forth, for the [hostility of the] wicked surrounds the [uncompromisingly] righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.

⁵ Look around [you, Habakkuk, replied the Lord] among the nations and see! And be astonished! Astounded! For I am putting into effect a work in your days [such] that you would not believe it if it were told you.^(A)

⁶ For behold, I am rousing up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation who march through the breadth of the earth to take possession of dwelling places that do not belong to them.^(B)

⁷ [The Chaldeans] are terrible and dreadful; their justice and dignity proceed [only] from themselves.

⁸ Their horses also are swifter than leopards and are fiercer than the evening wolves, and their horsemen spread themselves and press on proudly; yes, their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle that hastens to devour.

⁹ They all come for violence; their faces turn eagerly forward, and they gather prisoners together like sand.

¹⁰ They scoff at kings, and rulers are a derision to them; they ridicule every stronghold, for they heap up dust [for earth mounds] and take it.

¹¹ Then they sweep by like a wind and pass on, and they load themselves with guilt, [as do all men] whose own power is their god.

¹² Are not You from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed [the Chaldean] to execute [Your] judgment, and You, O Rock, have established him for chastisement and correction.^(C)

¹³ You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and can not look [inactively] upon injustice. Why then do You look upon the plunderer? Why are you silent when the wicked one destroys him who is more righteous than [the Chaldean oppressor] is?

¹⁴ Why do You make men like the fish of the sea, like reptiles and creeping things that have no ruler [and are defenseless against their foes]?

¹⁵ [The Chaldean] brings all of them up with his hook; he catches and drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is in high spirits.

¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices [offerings] to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because from them he lives luxuriously and his food is plentiful and rich.

¹⁷ Shall he therefore continue to empty his net and mercilessly go on slaying the nations forever?

2 [Oh, I know, I have been rash to talk out plainly this way to God!] I will [in my thinking] stand upon my post of observation and station myself on the tower or fortress, and will watch to see what He will say within me and what answer I will make [as His mouthpiece] to the perplexities of my complaint against Him.

² And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may [be able to] read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by.

³ For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end [fulfillment]; it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait [earnestly] for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day.^(D)

⁴ Look at the proud; his soul is not straight or right within him, but the [rigidly] just and the [uncompromisingly] righteous man shall ^[a]live by his faith and in his faithfulness.^(E)

⁵ Moreover, wine and ^[b]wealth are treacherous; the proud man [the Chaldean invader] is restless and cannot stay at home. His appetite is large like that of Sheol and [his greed] is like death and cannot be satisfied; he gathers to himself all nations and collects all people as if he owned them.

⁶ Shall not all these [victims of his greed] take up a taunt against him and in scoffing derision of him say, Woe to him who piles up that which is not his! [How long will he possess it?] And [woe to him] who loads himself with promissory notes for usury!

⁷ Shall [your debtors] not rise up suddenly who shall bite you, exacting usury of you, and those awake who will vex you [toss you to and fro and make you tremble violently]? Then you will be booty for them.

⁸ Because you [king of Babylon] have plundered many nations, all who are left of the people shall plunder you—because of men’s blood and for the violence done to the earth, to the city and all the people who live in each city.

⁹ Woe to him who obtains wicked gain for his house, [who thinks by so doing] to set his nest on high that he may be preserved from calamity and delivered from the power of evil!

¹⁰ You have devised shame to your house by cutting off and putting an end to many peoples, and you have sinned against and forfeited your own life.

¹¹ For the stone shall cry out of the wall [built in sin, to accuse you], and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it [agreeing with its charge against you].

¹² Woe to him who builds a town with blood and establishes a city by iniquity!

¹³ Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?

¹⁴ But [the time is coming when] the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.^(F)

¹⁵ Woe to him who gives his neighbors drink, who pours out your bottle to them and adds to it your poisonous and blighting wrath and also makes them drunk, that you may look on their stripped condition and pour out foul shame [on their glory]!

¹⁶ You [yourself] will be filled with shame and contempt instead of glory. Drink also and be like an uncircumcised [heathen]! The cup [of wrath] in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you [O destroyer], and foul shame shall be upon your own glory!^(G)

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will cover and overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals [which the violence frightened away] will terrify you on account of men’s blood and the violence done to the land, to the city and all its inhabitants.

¹⁸ What profit is the graven image when its maker has formed it? It is only a molten image and a teacher of lies. For the maker trusts in his own creations [as his gods] when he makes dumb idols.

¹⁹ Woe to him who says to the wooden image, Awake! and to the dumb stone, Arise, teach! [Yet, it cannot, for] behold, it is laid over with gold and silver and there is no breath at all inside it!

²⁰ But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth hush and keep silence before Him.^(H)

3 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, set to wild, enthusiastic, and triumphal music.

² O Lord, I have heard the report of You and was afraid. O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make [Yourself] known! In wrath [earnestly] remember love, pity, and mercy.

³ God [approaching from Sinai] came from Teman [which represents Edom] and the Holy One from Mount Paran [in the Sinai region]. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]! His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of His praise.

⁴ And His brightness was like the sunlight; rays streamed from His hand, and there [in the sunlike splendor] was the hiding place of His power.

⁵ Before Him went the pestilence [as in Egypt], and burning plague followed His feet [as in Sennacherib’s army].^(I)

⁶ He stood and measured the earth; He looked and shook the nations, and the eternal mountains were scattered and the perpetual hills bowed low. His ways are everlasting and His goings are of old.

⁷ I [Habakkuk, in vision] saw the tents of Cushan [probably Ethiopia] in affliction; the [tent] curtains of the land of Midian trembled.

⁸ Were You displeased with the rivers, O Lord? Or was Your anger against the rivers [You divided]? Was Your wrath against the [Red] Sea, that You rode [before] upon Your horses and Your chariots of victory and deliverance?

⁹ Your bow was made quite bare; sworn to the tribes [of Israel] by Your sure word were the rods of chastisement, scourges, and calamities. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]! With rivers You cleaved the earth [bringing forth waters in dry places].^(J)

¹⁰ The mountains saw You; they trembled and writhed [as if in pain]. The overflowing of the water passed by [as at the deluge]; the deep uttered its voice and lifted its hands on high.

¹¹ The sun and moon stood back [as before Joshua] in their habitation at the light of Your arrows as they sped, at the flash of Your glittering spear.^(K)

¹² You marched through the land in indignation; You trampled and threshed the nations in anger.

¹³ You went forth and have come for the salvation of Your people, for the deliverance and victory of Your anointed [people Israel]; You smote the head of the house of the wicked, laying bare the foundation even to the neck. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

¹⁴ You pierced with his own arrows the head of [the enemy’s] hordes; they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me [the people], rejoicing as if to devour the poor [Israel] secretly.

¹⁵ You have trodden the sea with Your horses, [beside] the heap of great and surging waters.^(L)

¹⁶ I heard and my [whole inner self] trembled; my lips quivered at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones and under me [down to my feet]; I tremble. I will wait quietly for the day of trouble and distress when there shall come up against [my] people him who is about to invade and oppress them.

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls,

¹⁸ Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation!^(M)

¹⁹ The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!

For the Chief Musician; with my stringed instruments.

1 The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah king of Judah and son of Amon.

² By taking away I will make an end and I will utterly consume and sweep away all things from the face of the earth, says the Lord.

³ I will consume and sweep away man and beast; I will consume and sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will overthrow the stumbling blocks (the idols) with the wicked [worshipers], and I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth, says the Lord.

⁴ I will also stretch out My hand over Judah and over all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place and the name of the idol priests with the [false] priests,

⁵ And those who worship the starry host of the heavens upon their housetops and those who [pretend to] worship the Lord and swear by and to Him and yet swear by and to [the heathen god Molech or] Malcam [their idol king],

⁶ And those who have drawn back from following the Lord and those who have not sought the Lord nor inquired for, inquired of, and required the Lord [as their first necessity].

⁷ [Hush!] Be silent before the Lord God, for the day [of the vengeance] of the Lord is near; for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, and He has set apart [for His use] those who have accepted His invitation.^(A)

⁸ And on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, I will punish the officials and the king’s sons and all who are clothed in [lavish] foreign apparel [instead of the Jewish dress, with its reminders to obey God’s commandments].^(B)

⁹ In the same day also will I punish all those who leap swiftly on or over the threshold [upon entering houses to steal], who fill their master’s house with violence and deceit and fraud.

¹⁰ And in that day, says the Lord, there shall be heard the voice of crying from the Fish Gate [in the wall of Jerusalem] and a wailing from the Second Quarter or Lower City and a great crashing and sound of destruction from the hills.

¹¹ Wail, you inhabitants of the Mortar [those located in the hollow part of the city]! For all the merchant people, like the people of Canaan, will be silent [entirely destroyed]; all those who weighed out silver and were loaded with it will be cut off.

¹² And at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish the men who [like old wine] are thickening and settling on their lees, who say in their hearts, The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil.

¹³ And their wealth shall become plunder and their houses a desolation. Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them; though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink the wine from them.^(C)

¹⁴ The great day of the Lord is near—near and hastening fast. Hark! the voice of the day of the Lord! The mighty man [unable to fight or to flee] will cry then bitterly.

¹⁵ That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness,^(D)

¹⁶ A day of the blast of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the high towers and battlements.

¹⁷ And I will bring distress upon men, so that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.

¹⁸ Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s indignation and wrath. But the whole earth shall be consumed in the fire of His jealous ^[a]wrath, for a full, yes, a sudden, end will He make of all the inhabitants of the earth.^(E)

2 Collect your thoughts, yes, unbend yourselves [in submission and see if there is no sense of shame and no consciousness of sin left in you], O shameless nation [not desirous or desired]!

² [The time for repentance is speeding by like chaff whirled before the wind!] Therefore consider, before God’s decree brings forth [the curse upon you], before the time [to repent] is gone like the drifting chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you—yes, before the day of the wrath of the Lord comes upon you!

³ Seek the Lord [inquire for Him, inquire of Him, and require Him as the foremost necessity of your life], all you humble of the land who have acted in compliance with His revealed will and have kept His commandments; seek righteousness, seek humility [inquire for them, require them as vital]. It may be you will be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger.

⁴ For [hear the fate of the Philistines:] Gaza shall be forsaken and Ashkelon shall become a desolation; the people of Ashdod shall be driven out at noonday and Ekron shall be uprooted.

⁵ Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, the nation of the Cherethites [in Philistia]! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines; I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left.

⁶ And the seacoast shall be pastures, with [deserted] dwelling places and caves for shepherds and folds for flocks.

⁷ The ^[b]seacoast shall belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall pasture their flocks upon it; in the houses of [deserted Philistine] Ashkelon shall they of Judah lie down in the evening. For the Lord their [Judah’s] God shall visit them [for their relief] and restore them from their captivity.^(F)

⁸ I have heard the taunts of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites by which they have reproached My people, and magnified themselves and made boasts against their territory.

⁹ Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah, a land possessed by nettles and wild vetches and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of My people shall make a prey of them and what is left of My nation shall possess them.

¹⁰ This shall they have for their pride, because they have taunted and boasted against the people of the Lord of hosts.

¹¹ The Lord will be terrible to them, for He will make lean and famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship Him, every one from his place, even all the isles and coastlands of the nations.^(G)

¹² You Ethiopians also, you shall be slain by My sword.^(H)

¹³ And [the Lord] will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria and will make Nineveh a desolation, dry as the desert.^(I)

¹⁴ Herds shall lie down in the midst of [Nineveh], all the [wild] beasts of the nations and of every kind; both the pelican and the hedgehog shall lodge on the upper part of her [fallen] pillars; the voice [of the nesting bird] shall sing in the windows; desolation and drought shall be on the thresholds, for her cedar paneling will He lay bare.

¹⁵ This is the joyous and exultant city that dwelt carelessly [feeling so secure], that said in her heart, I am and there is none beside me. What a desolation she has become, a lair for [wild] beasts! Everyone who passes by her shall hiss and wave his hand [indicating his gratification].^(J)

3 Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city [Jerusalem]!

² She did not listen to and heed the voice [of God]; she accepted no correction or instruction; she trusted not in the Lord [nor leaned on or was confident in Him, but was confident in her own wealth]; she drew not near to her God [but to the god of Baal or Molech].

³ Her officials in the midst of her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones on the morrow, for nothing is left by morning.

⁴ Her prophets are light [lacking truth, gravity, and steadiness] and men of treachery; her priests have profaned the sanctuary; [defrauding God and man by pretending their own word is God’s word] they have done violence to the law.^(K)

⁵ The Lord in the midst of her is [uncompromisingly] righteous; He will not do iniquity. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He fails not, but the unjust [person] knows no shame.

⁶ I [the Lord] have cut off nations; their battlements and corner towers are desolate and in ruins. I laid their streets waste so that none passes over them; their cities are destroyed so that there is no man, there is no inhabitant.

⁷ I said, Only let her [reverently and worshipfully] fear Me, receive correction and instruction, and [Jerusalem’s] dwelling shall not be cut off. However, I have punished her [according to all that I have appointed concerning her in the way of punishment], but all the more they are eager to make all their doings corrupt and infamous.

⁸ Therefore [earnestly] wait for Me, says the Lord, [waiting] for the day when I rise up to the attack [as a witness, accuser, or judge, and a testimony]. For My decision and determination and right it is to gather the nations together, to assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them My indignation, even all [the heat of] My fierce anger; for [in that day] all the earth shall be consumed with the fire of My zeal and jealousy.

⁹ For then [changing their impure language] I will give to the people a clear and pure speech from pure lips, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one unanimous consent and one united shoulder [bearing the yoke of the Lord].

¹⁰ From beyond the rivers of Cush or Ethiopia those who pray to Me, the daughter of My dispersed people, will bring and present My offering.

¹¹ In that day you [the congregation of Israel] shall not be put to shame for all your deeds by which you have rebelled and transgressed against Me, for then I will take away out of your midst those who exult in your majesty and pride; and you shall no more be haughty [and carry yourselves arrogantly on or] because of My holy mountain.

¹² For I will leave in the midst of you a people afflicted and poor, and they shall trust, seek refuge, and be confident in the name of the Lord.

¹³ What is left of Israel shall not do iniquity or speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they shall feed and lie down and none shall make them afraid.

¹⁴ Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice, be in high spirits and glory with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem [in that day].

¹⁵ [For then it will be that] the Lord has taken away the judgments against you; He has cast out your enemy. The King of Israel, even the Lord [Himself], is in the midst of you; [and after He has come to you] you shall not experience or fear evil any more.

¹⁶ In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not, O Zion. Let not your hands sink down or be slow and listless.

¹⁷ The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior [Who saves]! He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest [in silent satisfaction] and in His love He will be silent and make no mention [of past sins, or even recall them]; He will exult over you with singing.

¹⁸ I will gather those belonging to you [those Israelites in captivity] who yearn and grieve for the solemn assembly [and the festivals], on whom [their exile and inability to attend services at Jerusalem have brought derision and] the reproach of it is a burden.

¹⁹ Behold, at that time I will deal with all those who afflict you; I will save the limping [ones] and gather the outcasts and will make them a praise and a name in every land of their shame.^(L)

²⁰ At that time I will bring you in; yes, at that time I will gather you, for I will make you a name and a praise among all the nations of the earth when I reverse your captivity before your eyes, says the Lord.