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3 Woe to the abloody city!
It is all full of lies and robbery.
Its 1victim never departs.
And the noise of rattling wheels,
Of galloping horses,
Of 2clattering chariots!
3 Horsemen charge with bright sword and glittering spear.
There is a multitude of slain,
A great number of bodies,
Countless corpses—
They stumble over the corpses—
4 Because of the multitude of 3harlotries of the 4seductive harlot,
bThe mistress of sorceries,
Who sells nations through her harlotries,
And families through her sorceries.
5 “Behold, I am cagainst you,” says the Lord of hosts;
d“I will lift your skirts over your face,
I will show the nations your nakedness,
And the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will cast abominable filth upon you,
And make you fa spectacle.
7 It shall come to pass that all who look upon you
gWill flee from you, and say,
h‘Nineveh is laid waste!
iWho will bemoan her?’
Where shall I seek comforters for you?”
8 jAre you better than kNo 6Amon
That was situated by the 7River,
That had the waters around her,
Whose rampart was the sea,
Whose wall was the sea?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength,
And it was boundless;
lPut and Lubim were 8your helpers.
She went into captivity;
mHer young children also were dashed to pieces
nAt the head of every street;
They ocast lots for her honorable men,
And all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You also will be pdrunk;
You will be hidden;
You also will seek refuge from the enemy.
12 All your strongholds are qfig trees with ripened figs:
If they are shaken,
They fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Surely, ryour people in your midst are women!
The gates of your land are wide open for your enemies;
Fire shall devour the sbars of your gates.
14 Draw your water for the siege!
tFortify your strongholds!
Go into the clay and tread the mortar!
Make strong the brick kiln!
15 There the fire will devour you,
The sword will cut you off;
It will eat you up like a ulocust.
Make yourself many—like the locust!
Make yourself many— like the swarming locusts!
16 You have multiplied your vmerchants more than the stars of heaven.
The locust plunders and flies away.
17 wYour commanders are like swarming locusts,
And your generals like great grasshoppers,
Which camp in the hedges on a cold day;
When the sun rises they flee away,
And the place where they are is not known.
18 xYour shepherds slumber, O yking of Assyria;
Your nobles rest in the dust.
Your people are zscattered on the mountains,
And no one gathers them.
19 Your injury has no healing,
aYour wound is severe.
bAll who hear news of you
Will clap their hands over you,
For upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually?
1 The 1burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry,
aAnd You will not hear?
Even cry out to You, b“Violence!”
And You will cnot save.
3 Why do You show me iniquity,
And cause me to see 2trouble?
For plundering and violence are before me;
There is strife, and contention arises.
4 Therefore the law is powerless,
And justice never goes forth.
For the dwicked surround the righteous;
Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
5 “Look eamong the nations and watch—
Be utterly astounded!
For I will work a work in your days
Which you would not believe, though it were told you.
6 For indeed I am fraising up the Chaldeans,
A bitter and hasty gnation
Which marches through the breadth of the earth,
To possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful;
Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses also are hswifter than leopards,
And more fierce than evening wolves.
Their 3chargers 4charge ahead;
Their cavalry comes from afar;
They fly as the ieagle that hastens to eat.
9 “They all come for violence;
Their faces are set like the east wind.
They gather captives like sand.
And princes are scorned by them.
They deride every stronghold,
For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.
11 Then his 5mind changes, and he transgresses;
He commits offense,
jAscribing this power to his god.”
12 Are You not kfrom everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, lYou have appointed them for judgment;
O Rock, You have marked them for mcorrection.
13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil,
And cannot look on wickedness.
Why do You look on those who deal treacherously,
And hold Your tongue when the wicked devours
A person more righteous than he?
14 Why do You make men like fish of the sea,
Like creeping things that have no ruler over them?
15 They take up all of them with a hook,
They catch them in their net,
And gather them in their dragnet.
Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16 Therefore nthey sacrifice to their net,
And burn incense to their dragnet;
Because by them their share is 6sumptuous
And their food plentiful.
17 Shall they therefore empty their net,
And continue to slay nations without pity?
2 I will astand my watch
And set myself on the rampart,
And watch to see what He will say to me,
And what I will answer when I am corrected.
2 Then the Lord answered me and said:
b“Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
3 For cthe vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will dnot lie.
Though it tarries, ewait for it;
Because it will fsurely come,
It will not tarry.
His soul is not upright in him;
But the gjust shall live by his faith.
5 “Indeed, because he transgresses by wine,
He is a proud man,
And he does not stay at home.
Because he henlarges his desire as 1hell,
And he is like death, and cannot be satisfied,
He gathers to himself all nations
And heaps up for himself all peoples.
6 “Will not all these itake up a proverb against him,
And a taunting riddle against him, and say,
‘Woe to him who increases
What is not his—how long?
And to him who loads himself with 2many pledges’?
7 Will not 3your creditors rise up suddenly?
Will they not awaken who oppress you?
And you will become their booty.
8 jBecause you have plundered many nations,
All the remnant of the people shall plunder you,
Because of men’s 4blood
And the violence of the land and the city,
And of all who dwell in it.
9 “Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house,
That he may kset his nest on high,
That he may be delivered from the 5power of disaster!
10 You give shameful counsel to your house,
Cutting off many peoples,
And sin against your soul.
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall,
And the beam from the timbers will answer it.
12 “Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed,
Who establishes a city by iniquity!
13 Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts
That the peoples labor 6to feed the fire,
And nations weary themselves in vain?
14 For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.
15 “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor,
7Pressing him to your lbottle,
Even to make him drunk,
That you may look on 8his nakedness!
16 You are filled with shame instead of glory.
You also—drink!
And 9be exposed as uncircumcised!
The cup of the Lord’s right hand will be turned against you,
And utter shame will be on your glory.
17 For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you,
And the plunder of beasts which made them afraid,
Because of men’s blood
And the violence of the land and the city,
And of all who dwell in it.
18 “What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it,
The molded image, a teacher of lies,
That the maker of its mold should trust in it,
To make mute idols?
19 Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’
To silent stone, ‘Arise! It shall teach!’
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
Yet in it there is no breath at all.
20 “But mthe Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
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