[1] The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
[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!
[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.
[4] Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment does never go forth: for the wicked does compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds. ¶
[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.
[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 theirs.
[7] They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[11] Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power to his god. ¶
[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.
[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?
[14] And make men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
[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.
[16] Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.
[17] Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?