Through My Bible Yr 2 – February 17

Habakkuk 1

¹The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.

Habakkuk’s Complaint

² How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?

³ Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.

⁴ Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.

The Lord ‘s Answer

⁵ “Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.

⁶ I am raising up the Babylonians, ^[a]
that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth
to seize dwelling places not their own.

⁷ They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor.

⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong;
their horsemen come from afar.
They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;

⁹ they all come bent on violence.
Their hordes ^[b] advance like a desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand.

¹⁰ They deride kings
and scoff at rulers.
They laugh at all fortified cities;
they build earthen ramps and capture them.

¹¹ Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—
guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

¹² O LORD, are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One, we will not die.
O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment;
O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

¹³ Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrong.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

¹⁴ You have made men like fish in the sea,
like sea creatures that have no ruler.

¹⁵ The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his dragnet;
and so he rejoices and is glad.

¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury
and enjoys the choicest food.

¹⁷ Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?

Habakkuk 2

¹ I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint. ^[c]

The LORD’s Answer

² Then the LORD replied:
“Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald ^[d]may run with it.

³ For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it ^[e]will certainly come and will not delay.

⁴ “See, he is puffed up;
his desires are not upright—
but the righteous will live by his faith ^[f]–

⁵ indeed, wine betrays him;
he is arrogant and never at rest.
Because he is as greedy as the grave ^[g]
and like death is never satisfied,
he gathers to himself all the nations
and takes captive all the peoples.

Footnotes:

1. Habakkuk 1:6 Or Chaldeans
2. Habakkuk 1:9 The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
3. Habakkuk 2:1 Or and what to answer when I am rebuked
4. Habakkuk 2:2 Or so that whoever reads it
5. Habakkuk 2:3 Or Though he linger, wait for him; / he
6. Habakkuk 2:4 Or faithfulness
7. Habakkuk 2:5 Hebrew Sheol

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.