4. Therefore, Torah has no effect, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked encircle the righteous Therefore justice comes out perverted.
5. “Look among the nations! Observe! Astonish yourself! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days. You will not believe it if it were told.
6. For I am about to raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter, impetuous nation, marching all over the land, to seize dwellings not its own.
7. Dreadful and terrifying, Its justice and dignity derive from itself.
8. Its horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Its horsemen come galloping. Its horsemen are coming from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to eat.
9. All of them come for violence— an assembling of faces to the east. He gathers captives like sand.
10. He scoffs at kings, and rulers are a joke to him. He laughs at every stronghold— he heaps up dirt and takes it.
11. Then a wind sweeps through and passes on. He is guilty— This, his strength, is his god.”
12. Are not You from antiquity— Adonai my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Adonai, You have ordained him for judgment—as You, O Rock, have established him to chasten.
13. With eyes too pure to see evil You cannot look at such trouble! Why do You look at the treacherous? Why do You remain silent when a wicked one swallows up those more righteous than him?
14. You made man like the fish of the sea, like a creeping thing— with no one ruling over him.