Habakkuk Chapter 1

1 : 1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

1 : 2 O LORD, how long shall I cry, and you will not hear! even cry out to you of violence, and you will not save!

1 : 3 Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

1 : 4 Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment does never go forth: for the wicked does compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds.

1 : 5 Behold you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it be told you.

1 : 6 For, see, 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 their's.

1 : 7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

1 : 8 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 hastens to eat.

1 : 9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

1 : 10 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.

1 : 11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power to his god.

1 : 12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.

1 : 13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity: why look you on them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?

1 : 14 And make men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

1 : 15 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.

1 : 16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.

1 : 17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?