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1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
Habakkuk’s Complaint
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry,
and You will not hear?
Or cry to You, “Violence!”
and You will not save?
3 Why do You make me see wickedness,
and cause me to see trouble?
Plundering and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 Therefore the law is powerless,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
therefore injustice proceeds.
The Lord’s Answer
5 Look among the nations, and watch—
wonder and be amazed!
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe,
though it were told you.
6 For I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation
which marches through the breadth of the earth,
to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful;
their justice and their dignity
proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than evening wolves.
Their horsemen charge on;
their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like the eagle that hastens to eat.
9 They all come for violence;
their forces advance like the east wind.
They gather captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings,
and they scorn rulers.
They deride every stronghold,
for they build up siege ramps to capture it.
11 Then their mind changes,
and they transgress and commit offense;
their own power is their god.
Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
12 Are You not from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One? We will not die.
O Lord, You have appointed them for judgment;
and You, O Rock, have established them for correction.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil,
and You cannot look on wickedness.
Why do You look on those who deal treacherously,
and hold Your tongue when the wicked
devours the man who is more righteous than he?
14 You make men like fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.
15 They bring all of them up with a hook,
they catch them in their net;
they gather them in their dragnet.
Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net
and burn incense to their dragnet;
for by them their portion is extravagant,
and their food plentiful.
17 Shall they continue to empty their net,
and continually kill the nations while not sparing anyone?
2 I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the watchtower;
and I will keep watch to see what He will say to me,
and what I will answer when I am reproved.
The Just Shall Live by Faith
2 And the Lord answered me:
Write the vision,
and make it plain on tablets,
that he who reads it may run.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
but it speaks of the end,
and does not lie.
If it delays, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
4 Look, his soul is lifted up;
it is not upright in him;
but the just shall live by his faith.
5 Indeed, wine betrays the proud man,
who does not stay at home.
He enlarges his appetite as Sheol,
and like death he is never satisfied.
He gathers to himself all nations
and collects for himself all peoples.
Woe to the Wicked
6 Shall not all these take up a taunt against him, with satire and riddles, and say,
“Woe to him who increases what is not his—how long?
And to him who loads himself with heavy debts!”
7 Shall not your debtors rise up suddenly,
and those awake who oppress you?
Then you will be their plunder.
8 Because you have plundered many nations,
all the remnant of the people will plunder you,
because of the bloodshed of men and violence of the land,
of the cities and all who live in them.
9 “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,
to set his nest on high,
to be delivered from the power of calamity!”
10 You have given shameful counsel to your house
by cutting off many peoples,
and forfeiting your life.
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall,
and the beam of the woodwork will answer it.
12 “Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed
and establishes a city on iniquity!”
13 Is it not from the Lord of Hosts
that the people labor to feed fire,
and the nations weary themselves for nothing?
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
as the waters cover the seas.
15 “Woe to him who makes his neighbor drink,
pouring out your poison until they are drunk,
that you may look on their nakedness!”
16 You will be filled with shame instead of glory.
You yourself—drink and show your uncircumcision!
The cup of the Lord’s right hand will be turned against you,
and utter shame will come on your glory!
17 The violence done to Lebanon will cover you,
as will the plunder of beasts that terrified them,
because of the bloodshed of men and violence of the land,
of the cities and all who live in them.
18 What profit is a carved image when its maker has carved it,
a cast image, and a teacher of lies,
that its maker trusts in what he has shaped
when he makes mute idols?
19 Woe to him who says to the wood, “Awake!”
To the silent stone, “Arise!” Can it teach?
It is overlaid with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all in it.
20 But the Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.
The Prayer of Habakkuk
3 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on Shigionoth.
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 these years
make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman,
and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah
His glory covered the heavens,
and the earth was full of His praise.
4 His brightness was like the light;
rays flashed from His hand,
and there His power was hidden.
5 Pestilence went out before Him,
and plague followed His feet.
6 He stood and measured the earth;
He looked and shook the nations.
The eternal mountains were scattered,
the perpetual hills bowed.
His ways are everlasting.
7 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;
the curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
8 Were you displeased with the rivers, O Lord?
Was Your anger against the rivers,
and was Your wrath against the sea
when You rode on Your horses,
on Your chariots of salvation?
9 You made bare Your bow;
oaths were the arrows at Your command. Selah
You divided the earth with the rivers.
10 The mountains saw You and trembled;
the overflowing water passed by.
The deep lifted its voice,
and lifted its hands on high.
11 The sun and moon stood still in their places;
at the light of Your arrows they went,
at the flash of Your glittering spear.
12 You marched throughout the earth in indignation;
You threshed the nations in anger.
13 You went forth to deliver Your people,
to deliver Your anointed one.
You wounded the head of the house of the wicked,
laying him bare from head to foot. Selah
14 You pierced with his own arrows
the leaders of his villages.
They came like a whirlwind to scatter me;
their rejoicing was like devouring the poor in secret.
15 You trampled the sea with Your horses,
through the wakes of great waters.
16 I heard, and my body trembled;
my lips quivered at the sound;
rottenness entered my bones;
my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will wait quietly for the day
when calamity comes on the people invading us.
A Hymn of Faith
17 Though the fig tree does not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines;
though the yield of the olive fails,
and the fields produce no food;
though the flocks are cut off from the fold,
and there be no herd in the stalls—
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord God is my strength;
He will make my feet like hinds’ feet,
and He will make me walk on my high places.
To the Music Director: with my stringed instruments.
9 The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. The star was given the key to the bottomless pit. 2 He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke ascended from the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace. The sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit. 3 And out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. Power was given them as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were given authority, not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. 6 In those days men will seek death but will not find it. They will desire to die, but death will elude them.
7 The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were something like crowns of gold, and their faces were like faces of men. 8 They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running to battle. 10 They had tails like scorpions and stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men for five months. 11 They had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek his name is Apollyon.[a]
12 The first woe is past. Now, two more woes are yet to come.
13 The sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great Euphrates River.” 15 And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The army of horsemen numbered two hundred million. I heard their number.
17 Thus I saw the horses in the vision: Those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire and smoke and brimstone. 18 A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues—by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone, which came out of their mouths. 19 The power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents, with heads by which they inflict injury.
20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands. They did not cease to worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which cannot see nor hear nor walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders or their magical arts or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 We hung our harps
upon the poplars.
3 For there our captors made us sing
and our tormentors made us entertain,
saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
4 How shall we sing the song of the Lord
in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget its skill.
6 If I do not remember you,
let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not have Jerusalem
as my highest joy.
7 Remember, O Lord, the people of Edom
in the day of Jerusalem,
who said, “Raze it, raze it,
down to its foundations.”
8 O daughter of Babylon, who is to be destroyed,
blessed is the one who rewards you
as you have done to us.
9 Blessed is the one who takes
and dashes your little ones against the rocks.
10 Do not accuse a servant to his master,
lest he curse you, and you be found guilty.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.