Chapter 1

The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out to thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!

Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for devastation and violence are before me: and there are that raise strife and contention.

Therefore the law is slackened, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth encompass the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe though it be told you.

For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs.

They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves.

Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.

Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power to his god.

Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: why lookest thou on them that deal treacherously, and keepest silence when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?

And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping animals that have no ruler over them?

They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their food plenteous.

Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?