Habakkuk The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

TKJU⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw. ² O LORD, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear? I even cry out to You on account 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 things that raise up strife and contention. ⁴ Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment never goes forth: For the wicked compass around the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds. ⁵ "Behold among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously, all of you: For I will work a feat in your days, which you all will not believe, though it is told to you. ⁶ For lo, 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. ⁷ They are terrible and dreadful: Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves. ⁸ Their horses are also swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: And their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly as the eagle that hastens to eat. ⁹ They shall all come 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 stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take it. ¹¹ Then his mind shall change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing 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 cannot look on iniquity: Why do You look upon those 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 fish of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? ¹⁵ They take all of them up with the hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet: Therefore they rejoice and are glad. ¹⁶ Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their dragnet; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. ¹⁷ Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare to continually slay the nations?