חבקוק א

The pronouncement made by the prophet Habakkuk.

How long, O ETERNAL One, shall I cry out
And You not listen,
Shall I shout to You, “Violence!”
And You not save?

Why do You make me see iniquity
[Why] do You look upon wrong?—
Raiding and violence are before me,
Strife continues and contention goes on.

That is why decision fails
And justice never emerges;
For villains hedge in those whose cause is just—
Therefore judgment emerges deformed.

“Look among the nations,
Observe well and be utterly astounded;
For a work is being wrought in your days
That you would not believe if it were told.

For lo, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
That fierce, impetuous nation,
Who cross the earth’s wide spaces
To seize homes not their own.

They are terrible, dreadful;
They make their own laws and rules.

Their horses are swifter than leopards,
Fleeter than wolves of the steppe. as synonymous with ʻarabah; cf. Jer. 5.6.
Their steeds gallop—their steeds
Come flying from afar.
Like vultures rushing toward food,

They all come, bent on rapine.
The thrust of their van is forward,
And they amass captives like sand.

Kings they hold in derision,
And princes are a joke to them;
They laugh at every fortress,
They pile up earth and capture it.

Then they pass on like the wind,
They transgress and incur guilt,
For they ascribe their might to their god.”

You, O ETERNAL One, are from everlasting;
My holy God, You never die.
O ETERNAL One, You have made them a subject of contention;
O Rock, You have made them a cause for complaint.

You whose eyes are too pure to look upon evil,
Who cannot countenance wrongdoing,
Why do You countenance treachery,
And stand by idle
While the one in the wrong devours
The one in the right?

You have made humankind like the fish of the sea,
Like creeping things that have no ruler.

He has fished them all up with a line,
Pulled them up in his trawl,
And gathered them in his net.
That is why he rejoices and is glad.

That is why he sacrifices to his trawl
And makes offerings to his net;
For through them his portion is rich
And his nourishment fat.

Shall he then keep emptying his trawl,
And slaying nations without pity?