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          DASV: Habakkuk 1

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

Habakkuk's First Complaint
2 How long, O LORD, must I cry, and you not listen?
     I cry out to you "Violence," but you do not save.
3 Why do you force me to view injustice?
     Why do you make me look at trouble?
           For destruction and violence are before me;
     there is strife and conflict prevails.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
          and justice is never executed.
      For the wicked surround the righteous,
          so that justice is perverted.

The LORD's Response
5 Look at the nations, and see.
     Be absolutely amazed.
     For I am doing a deed in your days
          which you will not believe,
          even if you were told about it.
6 For look, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
          that ruthless and unruly nation.
      They march over the entire earth,
          to seize dwelling places that do not belong to them.
7 They are dreadful and terrifying;
     they make up their own justice and promote themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
          and are more fierce than wolves in the evening.
      Their horsemen charge ahead,
          their horsemen come from far away;
           they fly like an eagle swooping down to devour prey.
9 They all come for violence,
     with their faces fixed forward.
           They gather captives like sand.
10 They mock kings,
          and ridicule rulers.
     They laugh at every fortress,
          for they build earthen siege ramps,
                and take them.
11 Then they sweep by like a wind and go on,
     but they are guilty, whose might is their god.

Habakkuk's Second Complaint
12 O LORD, are you not from everlasting?
     My God, my Holy One, you never die.
      O LORD, you have ordained them to administer judgment;
          you, O Rock, have established them for correction.
13 Your eyes are too pure than to gaze on evil;
          you cannot look on wrongdoing.
     So why do you look on those who deal treacherously?
     Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up
           those more righteous than they are?

14 You have made people like the fish of the sea,
     as the creeping things that have no ruler over them.
15 The wicked hauls them up with a hook,
          he catches them in his net.
      He gathers them in his dragnet,
          so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Then he sacrifices to his net,
     and burns incense worshipping his dragnet;
           for by them he lives in luxury,
     and has plenty of food.
17 Will he continue emptying his net,
     and keep on slaying nations without mercy?
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