1 ¶ The burden seen by Habakkuk the prophet.

2 O LORD, how long must I cry, while you will not hear! I cry out to you about violence, and you do not save!

3 Why do you let me see injustice, and cause me to watch perversity? for violence and theft are before me: and strife and contention are continually being stirred up.

4 Therefore the law is weak, and judgment never goes forth: for the wicked thwart the righteous; and injustice prevails.

5 ¶ Look among the heathen, and see, wonder and be amazed: for I will do a work in your day, which you will not believe when you are told.

6 For I will raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation, which will march through the entire land, to seize territories that are not their own.

7 They will frighten and terrify: their ideas of justice and sovereignty are all their own.

8 Their horses are faster than leopards, and more fierce than wolves in the evening: their horsemen spread out from distant lands; and they fly like eagles swooping to devour.

9 They will all come to do violence: their faces look eagerly forward, and they will rake in captives like the sand.

10 And they will mock kings, and regard princes with contempt: they will laugh at every fortress; for they will pile up dirt, and take it.

11 Then his mind will change, and he will go on, and offend, thinking that his god is his strength.

12 ¶ Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to judge us; and, O mighty God, you have established them for our correction.

13 Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and cannot watch wrongdoing: why then do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and remain silent when the wicked swallows up one who is more righteous than he?

14 You make men like fish in the sea, like creeping things, who have no ruler over them?

15 They pull them all up with the hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

16 So they offer sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their dragnet; because by using them they get rich, and have plenty to eat.

17 Will they then empty their net, and go on continually slaying the nations without mercy?