^1. The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.

^2. How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save?

^3. Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.

^4. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

^5. "Look at the nations and watch-- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

^6. I am raising up the Babylonians, [1] that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.

^7. They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.

^8. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;

^9. they all come bent on violence. Their hordes [2] advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.

^10. They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them.

^11. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on-- guilty men, whose own strength is their god."

^12. O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

^13. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

^14. You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.

^15. The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.

^16. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.

^17. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?