Habakkuk

¹ I will stand on my guard post And station myself on the fortification; And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me And how I may respond when I am reproved.

² “Write down the vision And write it on tablets distinctly, That the one who reads it may run.

³ It pants toward its end, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come; it will not delay.

⁴ His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

⁵ So that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, And he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations And assembles to himself all peoples.

⁶ Even satire and riddles against him And say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his— For how long— And makes himself rich with loans?’

⁷ And those who make you tremble awaken? Indeed, you will become spoil for them.

⁸ All that is left of the peoples will take you as spoil— Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, To the town and all its inhabitants.

⁹ To put his nest on high, To be delivered from the hand of evil!

¹⁰ By cutting off many peoples; So you are sinning against your own soul.

¹¹ And the rafter will answer it from the framework.

¹² And founds a town with injustice!

¹³ That peoples toil for fire, And nations grow weary for nothing?

¹⁴ With the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, As the waters cover the sea.

¹⁵ Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk So as to look on their nakedness!

¹⁶ Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness. The cup in Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you, And utter disgrace will come upon your glory.

¹⁷ And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them, Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, To the town and all its inhabitants.

¹⁸ Or a molten image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own making When he fashions speechless idols.

¹⁹ To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’ And that is your teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, And there is no breath at all inside it.

²⁰ Let all the earth be silent before Him.”