Habakkuk 1

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. How long, LORD, have I cried for help, and you do not hear?
I cry to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save. Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you look upon oppression?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife arises, and contention is stirred up. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
therefore justice comes out twisted. “Look among the nations and see;
be astonished, utterly astonished!
For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe even if it were told. For look, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to possess dwellings not their own. It is dreadful and fearsome;
its justice and dignity come from itself. Its horses are swifter than leopards and fiercer than wolves at evening.
Its horsemen spread out;
its horsemen come from afar.
They fly like an eagle rushing to devour. All of it comes for violence;
their faces press eastward, and it gathers captives like sand. It scoffs at kings, and rulers are a laughingstock to it.
It laughs at every fortress, heaps up earth, and captures it. Then it sweeps past like the wind and goes on, guilty—its strength is its god.” Are you not from of old, LORD my God, my Holy One?
We will not die.
LORD, you have appointed him for judgment;
Rock, you have established him for correction. Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and you cannot look upon oppression.
Why do you look upon the treacherous and remain silent when the wicked swallows one more righteous than himself? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things with no ruler over them. He brings them all up with a hook, drags them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet.
Therefore he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for through them his portion is rich and his food abundant. Will he therefore keep emptying his net and continually kill nations without mercy?

Rights and attribution