1 The lifting up which Habbakuk the prophet saw.
2 How long, O Jehovah, did I cry for help, and thou wilt not bear? I will cry to thee violence, and thou wilt not save. 3 Wherefore wilt thou cause me to see vanity and cause me to look at labor? and oppression and violence before me, and there will be contention, and strife will be raised up. 4 For this, the law will be slack, and judgment will not go forth forever: for the unjust surrounds the just; for this perverted judgment will go forth.
5 See ye among the nations, and look, and wonder; ye shall wonder: for the working a work in your days ye will not believe if it shall be recounted. 6 For behold me raising up the Chaldeans, the nation bitter and hasty, going upon the wide places of the land to possess the dwelling not to him. 7 He terrible and dreadful: his judgment and his elevation shall come forth from himself, 8 And his horses were swift above panthers, and they were sharp above the wolves of the evening: and his horsemen were spread, and his horsemen shall come from far off; they shall fly as the eagle hastening to eat 9 Wholly for violence shall he come: the host of their faces forwards, and he shall gather a captivity as the sand. 10 And he shall scoff at kings, and princes a derision to him: at every fortress he shall deride, and he shall heap up dust and take it 11 Then the spirit changed, and he will pass over, and he transgressed: this his strength is his God.
12 Art thou not from of old, O Jehovah, my holy God? We shall not die. O Jehovah, thou didst set him for judgment; and O Rock, thou didst found him for correction. 13 Being pure of eyes from beholding evil, and wilt not be able to look upon labor: wherefore wilt thou look upon the transgressors? wilt thou be silent in the unjust swallowing the just above him? 14 And wilt thou make man as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping thing no ruler over him? 15 And he brought up a completion with the book, he will drag him in his net, and he will gather him in his fishnet: for this he will rejoice and be glad. 16 For this he will sacrifice to his net and burn incense to his fish-net; for by them his portion fat and his food. growing fat 17 For this, will he empty his net; and he will not spare to slay the nations continually.