| 1 | The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw. |
| 2 | O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out to thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! |
| 3 | Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for devastation and violence are before me: and there are that raise strife and contention. |
| 4 | Therefore the law is slackened, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth encompass the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth. |
| 5 | Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe though it be told 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 theirs. |
| 7 | They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from 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 hasteth 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 | Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. |
| 13 | Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: why lookest thou on them that deal treacherously, and keepest silence when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? |
| 14 | And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping animals 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 food plenteous. |
| 17 | Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations? |