Good News Translation GNT
World English Bible WEB
1 This is the message that the Lord revealed to the prophet Habakkuk.
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The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 O Lord, how long must I call for help before you listen, before you save us from violence?
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Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you "Violence!" and will you not save?
3 Why do you make me see such trouble? How can you stand to look on such wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are all around me, and there is fighting and quarreling everywhere.
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Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.
4 The law is weak and useless, and justice is never done. Evil people get the better of the righteous, and so justice is perverted.
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Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.
5 Then the Lord said to his people, "Keep watching the nations around you, and you will be astonished at what you see. I am going to do something that you will not believe when you hear about it.
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"Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told you.
6 I am bringing the Babylonians to power, those fierce, restless people. They are marching out across the world to conquer other lands.
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For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7 They spread fear and terror, and in their pride they are a law to themselves.
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They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8 "Their horses are faster than leopards, fiercer than hungry wolves. Their cavalry troops come riding from distant lands; their horses paw the ground. They come swooping down like eagles attacking their prey.
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Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.
9 "Their armies advance in violent conquest, and everyone is terrified as they approach. Their captives are as numerous as grains of sand.
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All of them come for violence. Their hordes face the desert. He gathers prisoners like sand.
10 They treat kings with contempt and laugh at high officials. No fortress can stop them - they pile up earth against it and capture it.
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Yes, he scoffs at kings, and princes are a derision to him. He laughs at every stronghold, for he builds up an earthen ramp, and takes it.
11 Then they sweep on like the wind and are gone, these men whose power is their god."
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Then he sweeps by like the wind, and goes on. He is indeed guilty, whose strength is his god."
12 Lord, from the very beginning you are God. You are my God, holy and eternal. Lord, my God and protector, you have chosen the Babylonians and made them strong so that they can punish us.
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Aren't you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed him for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish.
13 But how can you stand these treacherous, evil men? Your eyes are too holy to look at evil, and you cannot stand the sight of people doing wrong. So why are you silent while they destroy people who are more righteous than they are?
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You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he,
14 How can you treat people like fish or like a swarm of insects that have no ruler to direct them?
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and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
15 The Babylonians catch people with hooks, as though they were fish. They drag them off in nets and shout for joy over their catch!
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He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad.
16 They even worship their nets and offer sacrifices to them, because their nets provide them with the best of everything.
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Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious, and his food is good.
17 Are they going to use their swords forever and keep on destroying nations without mercy?
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Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
The World English Bible is in the public domain.