¹The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

²How long, O Lord, will I cry out,

But you won't hear?

I shout out to you about violence,

But you don't save.

³Why do you show me iniquity,

And have me see toil?

Oppression and violence are facing me,

And there is contention,

And strife raises its head.

⁴This is how the law is inoperative,

And justice never takes place.

For the wicked surround the righteous,

Which is how a perverted justice takes place.

⁶For I am about to rouse the Chaldeans

– The bitter and hasty nation,

Who go to the wide outposts of the earth

In order to inherit habitable territory

Which is not theirs.

⁷They are terrible and fearful.

Their own concept of justice and dignity applies.

⁸And their horses are swifter than leopards,

And they are more fierce than the wolves of the evening.

Their horsemen spread out,

And their horsemen come from afar,

And they fly like an eagle that hastens to eat.

⁹They all come for violence;

The objective of their mission is to advance,

And they gather captives like sand.

¹⁰They also mock kings,

And princes are objects of derision to them.

They laugh at every fortification;

They heap up mounds of ground

And capture it.

¹¹But then his attitude will change;

When he is in transgression,

He will realize his guilt

– He who attributes this power of his to his god.”

¹²Are you not of old, O Lord,

My God, my holy one

– You who do not die?

O Lord, you have appointed them to judgment,

And you, the rock, have destined them to condemnation.

¹³You are too pure of eyes to see evil,

And you are not able to look on injustice.

Why do you look on traitors and remain silent?

– On the wicked man swallowing up someone more righteous than he?

¹⁴And you make man like the fish of the sea,

Like the reptiles,

Which have no ruler over them.

¹⁵They lift everyone with a hook,

And they drag them away in their net,

And they gather them in their dragnet,

Which is why they rejoice and exult.

¹⁶That is why they sacrifice to their net,

And burn incense to their dragnet,

For by these things their portion is fat,

And their food rich.

¹⁷Will they therefore empty their net?

Indeed they will not spare their continual destruction of nations.

Reference(s) in Chapter 1: v.5 ↔ Acts 13:41.