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1 This is the message that the Lord revealed to the prophet Habakkuk.
Habakkuk Complains of Injustice
2 O Lord, how long must I call for help before you listen, before you save us from violence? 3 Why do you make me see such trouble? How can you stand to look on such wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are all around me, and there is fighting and quarreling everywhere. 4 The law is weak and useless, and justice is never done. Evil people get the better of the righteous, and so justice is perverted.
The Lord's Reply
5 (A)Then the Lord said to his people, “Keep watching the nations around you, and you will be astonished at what you see. I am going to do something that you will not believe when you hear about it. 6 (B)I am bringing the Babylonians to power, those fierce, restless people. They are marching out across the world to conquer other lands. 7 They spread fear and terror, and in their pride they are a law to themselves.
8 “Their horses are faster than leopards, fiercer than hungry wolves. Their cavalry troops come riding from distant lands; their horses paw the ground. They come swooping down like eagles attacking their prey.
9 “Their armies advance in violent conquest, and everyone is terrified as they approach.[a] Their captives are as numerous as grains of sand. 10 They treat kings with contempt and laugh at high officials. No fortress can stop them—they pile up earth against it and capture it. 11 Then they sweep on like the wind and are gone, these men whose power is their god.”
Habakkuk Complains to the Lord Again
12 Lord, from the very beginning you are God. You are my God, holy and eternal. Lord, my God and protector, you have chosen the Babylonians and made them strong so that they can punish us. 13 But how can you stand these treacherous, evil men? Your eyes are too holy to look at evil, and you cannot stand the sight of people doing wrong. So why are you silent while they destroy people who are more righteous than they are?
14 How can you treat people like fish or like a swarm of insects that have no ruler to direct them? 15 The Babylonians catch people with hooks, as though they were fish. They drag them off in nets and shout for joy over their catch! 16 They even worship their nets and offer sacrifices to them, because their nets provide them with the best of everything.
17 Are they going to use their swords forever and keep on destroying nations without mercy?
The Lord's Answer to Habakkuk
2 I will climb my watchtower and wait to see what the Lord will tell me to say and what answer he[b] will give to my complaint.
2 The Lord gave me this answer: “Write down clearly on tablets what I reveal to you, so that it can be read at a glance. 3 (C)Put it in writing, because it is not yet time for it to come true. But the time is coming quickly, and what I show you will come true. It may seem slow in coming, but wait for it; it will certainly take place, and it will not be delayed. 4 (D)And this is the message: ‘Those who are evil will not survive,[c] but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God.’”
Doom on the Unrighteous
5 Wealth is deceitful. Greedy people are proud and restless—like death itself they are never satisfied. That is why they conquer nation after nation for themselves. 6 The conquered people will taunt their conquerors and show their scorn for them. They will say, “You take what isn't yours, but you are doomed! How long will you go on getting rich by forcing your debtors to pay up?”
7 But before you know it, you that have conquered others will be in debt yourselves and be forced to pay interest. Enemies will come and make you tremble. They will plunder you! 8 You have plundered the people of many nations, but now those who have survived will plunder you because of the murders you have committed and because of your violence against the people of the world and its cities.[d]
9 You are doomed! You have made your family rich with what you took by violence, and have tried to make your own home safe from harm and danger! 10 But your schemes have brought shame on your family; by destroying many nations you have only brought ruin on yourself. 11 Even the stones of the walls cry out against you, and the rafters echo the cry.
12 You are doomed! You founded a city on crime and built it up by murder. 13 (E)The nations you conquered wore themselves out in useless labor, and all they have built goes up in flames. The Lord Almighty has done this. 14 (F)But the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord's glory as the seas are full of water.
15 You are doomed! In your fury you humiliated and disgraced your neighbors; you made them stagger as though they were drunk. 16 You in turn will be covered with shame instead of honor. You yourself will drink and stagger. The Lord will make you drink your own cup of punishment, and your honor will be turned to disgrace. 17 You have cut down the forests of Lebanon; now you will be cut down. You killed its animals; now animals will terrify you. This will happen because of the murders you have committed and because of your violence against the people of the world and its cities.[e]
18 What's the use of an idol? It is only something that a human being has made, and it tells you nothing but lies. What good does it do for its maker to trust it—a god that can't even talk! 19 You are doomed! You say to a piece of wood, “Wake up!” or to a block of stone, “Get up!” Can an idol reveal anything to you? It may be covered with silver and gold, but there is no life in it.
20 The Lord is in his holy Temple; let everyone on earth be silent in his presence.
A Prayer of Habakkuk
3 This is a prayer of the prophet Habakkuk:[f]
2 O Lord, I have heard of what you have done,
and I am filled with awe.
Now do again in our times
the great deeds you used to do.
Be merciful, even when you are angry.
3 God is coming again from Edom;
the holy God is coming from the hills of Paran.
His splendor covers the heavens,
and the earth is full of his praise.
4 He comes with the brightness of lightning;
light flashes from his hand,
there where his power is hidden.
5 He sends disease before him
and commands death to follow him.
6 When he stops, the earth shakes;
at his glance the nations tremble.
The eternal mountains are shattered;
the everlasting hills sink down,
the hills where he walked in ancient times.
7 I saw the people of Cushan afraid
and the people of Midian tremble.
8 Was it the rivers that made you angry, Lord?
Was it the sea that made you furious?
You rode upon the clouds;
the storm cloud was your chariot,
as you brought victory to your people.
9 You got ready to use your bow,
ready to shoot your arrows.[g]
Your lightning split open the earth.
10 When the mountains saw you, they trembled;
water poured down from the skies.
The waters under the earth roared,
and their waves rose high.
11 At the flash of your speeding arrows
and the gleam of your shining spear,
the sun and the moon stood still.
12 You marched across the earth in anger;
in fury you trampled the nations.
13 You went out to save your people,
to save your chosen king.
You struck down the leader of the wicked
and completely destroyed his followers.[h]
14 Your arrows pierced the commander of his army
when it came like a storm to scatter us,
gloating like those who secretly oppress the poor.[i]
15 You trampled the sea with your horses,
and the mighty waters foamed.
16 I hear all this, and I tremble;
my lips quiver with fear.
My body goes limp,
and my feet stumble[j] beneath me.
I will quietly wait for the time to come
when God will punish those who attack us.
17 Even though the fig trees have no fruit
and no grapes grow on the vines,
even though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no grain,
even though the sheep all die
and the cattle stalls are empty,
18 I will still be joyful and glad,
because the Lord God is my savior.
19 (G)The Sovereign Lord gives me strength.
He makes me sure-footed as a deer
and keeps me safe on the mountains.
9 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet. I saw a star which had fallen down to the earth, and it was given the key to the abyss.[a] 2 (A)The star opened the abyss, and smoke poured out of it, like the smoke from a large furnace; the sunlight and the air were darkened by the smoke from the abyss. 3 (B)Locusts came down out of the smoke upon the earth, and they were given the same kind of power that scorpions have. 4 (C)They were told not to harm the grass or the trees or any other plant; they could harm only the people who did not have the mark of God's seal on their foreheads. 5 The locusts were not allowed to kill these people, but only to torture them for five months. The pain caused by the torture is like the pain caused by a scorpion's sting. 6 (D)During those five months they will seek death, but will not find it; they will want to die, but death will flee from them.
7 (E)The locusts looked like horses ready for battle; on their heads they had what seemed to be crowns of gold, and their faces were like human faces. 8 (F)Their hair was like women's hair, their teeth were like lions' teeth. 9 (G)Their chests were covered with what looked like iron breastplates, and the sound made by their wings was like the noise of many horse-drawn chariots rushing into battle. 10 They have tails and stings like those of a scorpion, and it is with their tails that they have the power to hurt people for five months. 11 They have a king ruling over them, who is the angel in charge of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon; in Greek the name is Apollyon (meaning “The Destroyer”).
12 The first horror is over; after this there are still two more horrors to come.
13 (H)Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet. I heard a voice coming from the four corners of the gold altar standing before God. 14 The voice said to the sixth angel, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great Euphrates River!” 15 The four angels were released; for this very hour of this very day of this very month and year they had been kept ready to kill a third of all the human race. 16 I was told the number of the mounted troops: it was two hundred million. 17 (I)And in my vision I saw the horses and their riders: they had breastplates red as fire, blue as sapphire, and yellow as sulfur. The horses' heads were like lions' heads, and from their mouths came out fire, smoke, and sulfur. 18 A third of the human race was killed by those three plagues: the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur coming out of the horses' mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and also in their tails. Their tails are like snakes with heads, and they use them to hurt people.
20 (J)The rest of the human race, all those who had not been killed by these plagues, did not turn away from what they themselves had made. They did not stop worshiping demons, nor the idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic, their sexual immorality, or their stealing.
A Lament of Israelites in Exile
137 By the rivers of Babylon we sat down;
there we wept when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows near by
we hung up our harps.
3 Those who captured us told us to sing;
they told us to entertain them:
“Sing us a song about Zion.”
4 How can we sing a song to the Lord
in a foreign land?
5 May I never be able to play the harp again
if I forget you, Jerusalem!
6 May I never be able to sing again
if I do not remember you,
if I do not think of you as my greatest joy!
7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
the day Jerusalem was captured.
Remember how they kept saying,
“Tear it down to the ground!”
8 (A)Babylon, you will be destroyed.
Happy are those who pay you back
for what you have done to us—
9 who take your babies
and smash them against a rock.
10 Never criticize servants to their master. You will be cursed and suffer for it.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.