Nahum 1; Nahum 2; Nahum 3; Habakkuk 1; Habakkuk 2; Habakkuk 3

1 An oracle about Nineveh: the scroll containing the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

2 The LORD is a jealous and vengeful God; the LORD is vengeful and strong in wrath. The LORD is vengeful against his foes; he rages against his enemies.

3 The LORD is very patient but great in power; the LORD punishes. His way is in whirlwind and storm; clouds are the dust of his feet.

4 He can blast the sea and make it dry up; he can dry up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither; the bud of Lebanon withers.

5 The mountains quake because of him; the hills melt away. The earth heaves before him— the world and all who dwell in it.

6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can confront the heat of his fury? His wrath pours out like fire; the rocks are shattered because of him.

7 The LORD is good, a haven in a day of distress. He acknowledges those who take refuge in him.

8 With a rushing flood, he will utterly destroy her place and pursue his enemies into darkness.

9 What are you plotting against the LORD? He is one who can annihilate! Distress will not arise twice.

10 They are tangled up like thorns, like drunkards in their cups. They are consumed like stubble that is entirely dried up.

11 From you goes out one who plots evil against the LORD— a worthless counselor!

12 The LORD proclaims: Though once they were a healthy and numerous force, they have been cut off and have disappeared. I have afflicted you; I won't afflict you further, Zion.

13 Now I will break off his yoke from you and tear off your chains.

14 The LORD has commanded concerning you: You will have no children to carry on your name. I will remove carved idol and cast image from the house of your gods; I will make your grave, for you are worthless.

15 Look, on the mountains: the feet of a messenger who announces peace! Celebrate your festivals, Judah! Fulfill your solemn promises! The worthless one will never again invade you; he has been completely cut off.

1 A scatterer has come up against you. Guard the ramparts, watch the road, protect your groin, save your strength!

2 The LORD will restore the pride of Jacob, indeed, the pride of Israel, because ravagers have destroyed them and spoiled their branches.

3 The shields of his warriors are red; his soldiers are dressed in crimson. The ironwork of the chariots flashes like fire on the day he has prepared; the horses quiver.

4 The chariots race wildly through the streets; they rush back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart like bolts of lightning.

5 He musters his officers; they stumble as they press forward. They hurry to the city wall, and the portable shield is set up.

6 The gates of the rivers are opened; the palace melts.

7 It is decreed: She is sent into exile, carried away, while her female servants moan like doves, beating their breasts.

8 Nineveh has been like a pool of water. Such are its waters, and others are fleeing. "Stop, stop!"—but no one can turn them back.

9 Plunder silver! Plunder gold! There is no end to the supplies, an abundance of precious objects!

10 Destruction and devastation; the city is laid waste! The heart grows faint and knees buckle; there is anguish in every groin; all the faces grow pale.

11 Where is the lions' den, the meadow of the young lions, where lion, lioness, even lion cub go about with no one to terrify them?

12 The lion has torn enough prey for his cubs and strangled enough for his lionesses; he has filled his lairs with prey, his dens with torn flesh.

13 Look! I am against you, proclaims the LORD of heavenly forces. I will burn your chariots in smoke; the sword will devour your young lions; I will cut off your prey from the earth, the voice of your messengers will never again be heard!

1 Doom, city of bloodshed—all deceit, full of plunder: prey cannot get away.

2 Cracking whip and rumbling wheel, galloping horse and careening chariot!

3 Charging cavalry, flashing sword, and glittering spear; countless slain, masses of corpses, endless dead bodies—they stumble over their dead bodies!

4 Because of the many whorings of the whore, the lovely graces of the mistress of sorceries, the one who sells nations by means of her whorings and peoples by means of her sorceries:

5 Look! I am against you, proclaims the LORD of heavenly forces. I will lift your skirts over your face; I will show nations your nakedness and kingdoms your dishonor.

6 I will throw disgusting things at you; I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.

7 Then all who look at you will recoil from you and say, "Nineveh has been devastated! Who will lament for her?" Where could I possibly seek comforters for you?

8 Are you better than Thebes, situated by the Nile, waters surrounding her, whose fortress is sea and whose city wall is waters?

9 Cush and Egypt constituted her strength, without limit; Put and the Libyans were her help.

10 Yet even she was destined for exile; she went into captivity. Indeed, her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her officials; all of her powerful citizens were bound in chains.

11 Yes, even you will become drunk; you will have to hide! Even you will have to seek refuge from the enemy!

12 All your fortifications are fig trees with ripe fruit; when the trees are shaken, the fruit falls into the mouth of the eater.

13 Look, your people are women in your midst. The gates of your land have been flung wide open to your enemies. Fire consumes the bars of your gates.

14 Draw water for yourself to prepare for siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Tread the clay, trample the mortar, grab the brick mold!

15 Fire will consume you there; the sword will cut you down; like the locust it will consume you. Multiply like the locust; multiply like the grasshopper!

16 You boasted more traders than the heavens have stars. The locust sheds its skin and flies away.

17 Your guards are like grasshoppers, your marshals like swarms of cicadas that encamp on stone fences on a chilly day; when the sun rises, they take flight; no one knows where they have gone.

18 Your shepherds have fallen asleep, king of Assyria! Your officials are lying down. Your people are scattered across the mountains; there is no one to gather them.

19 There is no remedy for your injury; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. Who has not suffered from your continual cruelty?

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2 LORD, how long will I call for help and you not listen? I cry out to you, "Violence!" but you don't deliver us.

3 Why do you show me injustice and look at anguish so that devastation and violence are before me? There is strife, and conflict abounds.

4 The Instruction is ineffective. Justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous. Justice becomes warped.

5 Look among the nations and watch! Be astonished and stare because something is happening in your days that you wouldn't believe even if told.

6 I am about to rouse the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation, which travels throughout the earth to possess dwelling places it does not own.

7 The Chaldean is dreadful and fearful. He makes his own justice and dignity.

8 His horses are faster than leopards; they are quicker than wolves of the evening. His horsemen charge forward; his horsemen come from far away. They fly in to devour, swiftly, like an eagle.

9 They come for violence, the horde with all their faces set toward the desert. He takes captives like sand.

10 He makes fun of kings; rulers are ridiculous to him. He laughs at every fortress, then he piles up dirt and takes it.

11 He passes through like the wind and invades; but he will be held guilty, the one whose strength is his god.

12 LORD, aren't you ancient, my God, my holy one? Don't let us die. LORD, you put the Chaldean here for judgment. Rock, you established him as a rebuke.

13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you are unable to look at disaster. Why would you look at the treacherous or keep silent when the wicked swallows one who is more righteous?

14 You made humans like the fish of the sea, like creeping things with no one to rule over them.

15 The Chaldean brings all of them up with a fishhook. He drags them away with a net; he collects them in his fishing net, then he rejoices and celebrates.

16 Therefore, he sacrifices to his net; he burns incense to his fishing nets, because due to them his portion grows fat and his food becomes luxurious.

17 Should he continue to empty his net and continue to slay nations without sparing them?

1 I will take my post; I will position myself on the fortress. I will keep watch to see what the Lord says to me and how he will respond to my complaint.

2 Then the LORD answered me and said, Write a vision, and make it plain upon a tablet so that a runner can read it.

3 There is still a vision for the appointed time; it testifies to the end; it does not deceive. If it delays, wait for it; for it is surely coming; it will not be late.

4 Some people's desires are truly audacious; they don't do the right thing. But the righteous person will live honestly.

5 Moreover, wine betrays an arrogant man. He doesn't rest. He opens his jaws like the grave; like death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all nations to himself and collects all peoples for himself.

6 Won't everyone tell parables about him or mocking poems concerning him? They will say: Doom to the one who multiplies what doesn't belong to him and who increases his own burden. How long?

7 Won't they suddenly rise up to bite you? Those who frighten you will awaken; you will become plunder for them.

8 Since you yourself have plundered many nations, all the rest of the peoples will plunder you because of the human bloodshed and the violence done to the earth, to every village, and to all its inhabitants.

9 Doom to the one making evil gain for his own house, for putting his own nest up high, for delivering himself from the grasp of calamity.

10 You plan shame for your own house, cutting off many peoples and sinning against your own life.

11 A stone will cry out from a village wall, and a tree branch will respond.

12 Pity the one building a city with bloodshed and founding a village with injustice.

13 Look, isn't this from the LORD of heavenly forces? Peoples grow weary from making just enough fire; nations become tired for nothing.

14 But the land will be full of the knowledge of the LORD's glory, just as water covers the sea.

15 Doom to the one who makes his companions drunk, pouring out your wrath in order to see them naked.

16 You have drunk your fill of dishonor rather than glory. So drink and stagger. The cup of the LORD's strong hand will come around to you; disgrace will engulf you.

17 Because of the violence done to Lebanon, he will overwhelm you; the destruction of animals will terrify you, as will human bloodshed and violence throughout the land, the villages, and all their inhabitants.

18 Of what value is an idol, when its potter carves it, or a cast image that has been shaped? It is a teacher of lies, for the potter trusts the pottery, though it is incapable of speaking.

19 Doom to the one saying to the tree, "Wake up!" or "Get up" to the silent stone. Does it teach? Look, it is overlaid with gold and silver, but there is no breath within it.

20 But the LORD is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.

1 The prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth:

2 LORD, I have heard your reputation. I have seen your work. Over time, revive it. Over time, make it known. Though angry, remember compassion.

3 God comes from Teman and the holy one from the mountain of Paran. Selah His majesty covers the heavens and his praise fills the earth.

4 His radiance is like the sunlight, with rays flashing from his hand. That is the hiding place of his power.

5 Pestilence walks in front of him. Plague marches at his feet.

6 He stops and measures the earth. He looks and sets out against the nations. The everlasting mountains collapse; the eternal hills bow down; the eternal paths belong to him.

7 I saw the tents of Cushan under duress. The curtains of the land of Midian were quaking.

8 Was the LORD raging against the rivers? Or was your anger directed against the rivers? Or was your fury directed against the sea when you rode on your horses or rode your chariots to victory?

9 You raise up your empty bow, uttering curses for the arrows.Selah With rivers you split open the earth.

10 The mountains see you and writhe. A flood of water rushes through. The deep utters its voice; it raises its hands aloft.

11 Sun and moon stand still high above. With the light, your arrows shoot, your spear at the flash of lightning.

12 In fury, you stride the earth; in anger you tread the nations.

13 You go out to save your people. For the salvation of your anointed you smashed the head of the house of wickedness, laying bare the foundation up to the neck. Selah

14 You pierce the head of his warrior with his own spear. His warriors are driven off, those who take delight in oppressing us, those who take pleasure in secretly devouring the poor.

15 You make your horses tread on the sea; turbulent waters foam.

16 I hear and my insides tremble. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters my bones. I tremble while I stand, while I wait for the day of distress to come against the people who attack us.

17 Though the fig tree doesn't bloom, and there's no produce on the vine; though the olive crop withers, and the fields don't provide food; though the sheep is cut off from the pen, and there is no cattle in the stalls;

18 I will rejoice in the LORD. I will rejoice in the God of my deliverance.

19 The LORD God is my strength. He will set my feet like the deer. He will let me walk upon the heights.