 1 The burden that Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2 O Lord, until when shall I cry and you will not hear? I cry out to you of violence, and you do not save. 3 Why do you show me evil, and you look on toil? For destruction and violence are before me. And there is strife, and contention rises up. 4 Therefore the law has become helpless, and justice does not always go forth. For the wicked entraps the righteous. Therefore justice goes forth, being perverted. 5 Look among the nations and behold and wonder marvelously. For I will work a work in your days that you will not believe, not even if it is declared to you. 6 For I raise up the Chaldeans, the bitter and hasty nation that will march through the width of the land to possess homes not their own. 7 He is awesome+ and fearful. His judgment and his majesty comes forth from Himself. 8 His horses are swifter than leopards and more fierce than evening wolves. Their horsemen will spread themselves and their horsemen will come from far away. They will fly like the eagle hurrying to eat. 9 All of him will come for violence. The gathering of their faces is forward. They gather captives like the sand. 10 They will scoff at the kings, and the rulers will be a scorn to them. They will laugh at every stronghold, for he will heap up dust and capture it. 11 Then he sweeps on like a wind, and he transgresses and is guilty, crediting his power to his god. 12 Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We will not die. O Lord, you have ordained them for judgment. My rock, you have established them for correction. 13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look upon vexation. Why do you look upon those who deal deceitfully? Will you be silent when the wicked swallows one more righteous than he? 14 For you make man like the fish of the sea, like creeping things with no ruler over them. 15 He takes up all of them with the hook. He drags him with his net and gathers him with his seine. Therefore he rejoices and exults. 16 So he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his seine. Because by them his portion is fat and his food rich. 17 Will he then empty his net, and will he not spare to continually slay nations?
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