Habakkuk 1 - A Conservative Version

¹ The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

² O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou will not hear? I cry out to thee of violence, and thou will not save.

³ Why do thou show me iniquity, and look upon perverseness? For destruction and violence are before me, and there is strife, and contention rises up.

⁴ Therefore the law is slacked, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked man surrounds the righteous man, therefore justice goes forth perverted.

⁵ Behold ye scoffers (LXX/NT), and look, and wonder marvelously. For I am working a work in your days, which ye will not believe though it be told you.

⁶ For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs.

⁷ They are fearful and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.

⁸ Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. And their horsemen press proudly on. Yea, their horsemen come from far. They fly as an eagle that hastens to devour.

⁹ They come all of them for violence. The set of their faces is forwards, and they gather captives as the sand.

¹⁰ Yea, he scoffs at kings, and rulers are a derision to him. He derides every stronghold, for he heaps up dust, and takes it.

¹¹ Then he shall sweep by [as] a wind, and shall pass over, and be guilty; he whose might is his god.

¹² Are not thou from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, thou have ordained him for judgment, and thou, O Rock, have established him for correction.

¹³ Thou who are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and who cannot look on perverseness, why do thou look upon those who deal treacherously, and hold thy peace when the wicked man swallows up the man who is more righteous than he,

¹⁴ and makes men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

¹⁵ He takes all of them up with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his drag. Therefore he rejoices and is glad.

¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his drag, because by them his portion is fat, and his food plentiful.

¹⁷ Shall he therefore empty his net, and not spare to kill the nations continually?