1. The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision.
2. How long, O Lord, must I cry for helpand you do not listen?Or cry out to you, “Violence!”and you do not intervene?
3. Why do you let me see iniquity?why do you simply gaze at evil?Destruction and violence are before me;there is strife and discord.
4. This is why the law is numband justice never comes,For the wicked surround the just;this is why justice comes forth perverted.
5. Look over the nations and see!Be utterly amazed!For a work is being done in your daysthat you would not believe, were it told.
6. For now I am raising up the Chaldeans,that bitter and impulsive people,Who march the breadth of the landto take dwellings not their own.
7. They are terrifying and dreadful;their right and their exalted position are of their own making.
8. Swifter than leopards are their horses,and faster than desert wolves.Their horses spring forward;they come from far away;they fly like an eagle hastening to devour.
9. All of them come for violence,their combined onslaught, a stormwindto gather up captives like sand.
10. They scoff at kings,ridicule princes;They laugh at any fortress,heap up an earthen ramp, and conquer it.
11. Then they sweep through like the wind and vanish—they make their own strength their god!
12. Are you not from of old, O Lord,my holy God, immortal?Lord, you have appointed them for judgment,O Rock, you have set them in place to punish!