Historical
1 An oracle for Nineveh, a writing of the vision of Nahum, the Elkoshite.
God’s Anger With Nineveh
2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God;
the Lord avenges and is furious.
The Lord takes vengeance on His enemies,
and He reserves it for His adversaries;
3 the Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
and the Lord will in no way acquit the guilty.
In gale winds and a storm is His way,
and clouds are the dust of His feet.
4 He rebukes and dries up the sea,
and He makes waterless all the rivers.
Bashan and Carmel wither up,
and the sprout of Lebanon wastes away.
5 The mountains quake before Him,
and the hills melt;
the land rises up before Him,
the earth and everything that dwells on it.
6 Who can stand before His anger?
Who will rise up before His burning wrath?
His heat is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are broken up before Him.
7 The Lord is good,
a stronghold in the day of distress;
and He knows those who take refuge in Him.
8 As a flood running forth,
He will bring to an end the distress,
and He will pursue His adversaries into darkness.
9 Why do you all scheme against the Lord?
He will bring it to an end.
It will not rise up a second time.
10 Because they are like interwoven thorns
and as drunkards imbibing,
they are consumed like completely dry stubble.
11 Out of you, O Nineveh, comes one,
a worthless counselor,
who devises evil against the Lord.
12 So the Lord says:
“Even though they are full and many,
they will be cut down, and it will pass away.
Even though I have afflicted you,
I will no longer afflict you, O Judah;
13 now I will break apart his yoke from over you,
and I will tear apart your bonds.”
14 The Lord has given a command concerning you:
“No longer will your name go forth.
I will cut off the carved image and metal image
from the house of your gods.
I will prepare your grave,
for you are despised.”
15 Look, on the mountains
come the feet of him who brings good news,
who proclaims peace!
Make your feasts, O Judah,
and complete your vows.
For the wicked one will never again pass through your midst;
he is completely cut down.
The Fall of Nineveh
2 He who scatters has come to you.
Guard the fortifications!
Watch the road!
Prepare yourself,
and strengthen yourself!
2 For the Lord is restoring the prominence of Jacob,
even the prominence of Israel,
for others have certainly
laid waste their vines.
3 The shields of his mighty men are soaked red,
even the mighty men are clad in red.
In the day he prepares the chariots,
they are like a fire of iron.
The cypress spears are ready.
4 The chariots run wildly through the streets,
they rush to and fro in the open areas;
their appearance is like torches,
they dash to and fro like lightning.
5 He remembers his officers
as they stumble about on the road;
they hurry on to the wall
as the siege tower is set up.
6 The holding gates are opened wide,
and the palace washes away.
7 It is decreed:
She is uncovered and led away captive;
her handmaidens shall lead her as with the voice of doves,
beating their chests.
8 Nineveh is like a pool
whose waters run away.
“Halt! Halt!” they cry,
but no one turns back.
9 “Plunder the silver!
Plunder the gold!
There is no limit to the treasure,
or to the wealth of every precious thing.”
10 She is desolate, empty, and waste!
Hearts melt away, and knees shake;
pain is in all the loins, and all their faces grow pale.
11 Where is the den of the lions,
and the feeding place of the young lions,
where the lion and lioness prowl,
and the lion’s cub goes, with no one to disturb them?
12 The lion tore enough food for his cubs,
and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he has filled his caves with prey,
and his dens with flesh.
13 I am against you,
says the Lord of Hosts,
and I will burn your chariots in smoke,
and the sword will devour your lions.
I will cut off your prey from the earth,
and the voice of your messengers
will be heard no more.
Woe to Nineveh
3 Woe to the bloody city!
It is full of lies
and plunder.
The prey never departs.
2 The noise of the whip
and the noise of the rattling of the wheels,
galloping horses,
and rushing chariots!
3 Horsemen charging
with flashing sword
and glittering spear.
Multitude of slain,
great number of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble on the corpses—
4 because of the countless harlotries of the seductive harlot,
the mistress of sorceries,
who sells nations through her harlotries
and families through her sorceries.
5 I am against you, says the Lord of Hosts;
I will lift your skirts over your face,
and I will show the nations your nakedness,
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will throw filth on you,
and make you vile,
and make you a spectacle.
7 All who look at you will flee from you, and say,
“Nineveh is devastated! Who will lament for her?”
Where shall I seek comforters for you?
8 Are you better than Thebes
that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
whose rampart was the sea,
and whose wall was the water?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was without limit;
Put and Libya were her helpers.
10 Yet she went into exile,
she went into captivity;
her young children were dashed to pieces
at the head of every street;
they cast lots for her honorable men,
and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You also will be drunk;
you will go into hiding;
you will seek refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortresses are like fig trees
with first-ripe figs:
If they are shaken,
they fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Your troops
are women in your midst!
The gates of your land
are wide open to your enemies;
fire has devoured your bars.
14 Draw water for the siege!
Strengthen your forts!
Go into the clay and
tread the mortar!
Take hold of the brick mold!
15 There the fire will devour you,
the sword will cut you off;
it will eat you up like the locust.
Multiply yourselves—like the locust!
Multiply—like the grasshopper!
16 You have multiplied your merchants
more than the stars of heaven.
The locust plunders
and flies away.
17 Your leaders are like grasshoppers,
your commanders like swarms of locusts,
which camp in the hedges on a cold day;
when the sun rises they fly away,
and the place where they are is not known.
18 Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria;
Your nobles lie in the dust.
Your people are scattered on the mountains,
and no one gathers them.
19 There is no healing of your injury,
your wound is grievous.
All who hear news about you
clap their hands over you,
for upon whom has not your wickedness
continually passed?
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.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.