Habakkuk’s Question
1   The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
2   O LORD, how long shall I cry, and you will not hear! even cry out unto you of violence, and you will not save!
3   Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me   to   behold   trouble?   for   plundering   and violence are before me: and there are those that raise up strife and contention.
4   Therefore the law is slacked, and justice does   never   go   forth:   for   the   wicked   does surround the righteous; therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

The LORD’S Answer
5   Behold you among the nations, and regard, and wonder and be astonished: for I will work a work  in your days, which you will not believe, though it be told you.
6   For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the earth, to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.
7   They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves.
8   Their  horses  also  are  swifter  than  the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves:  and  their  horsemen  press  proudly on, their horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.
9   They shall all come for violence: their faces are set like the east wind, and they shall gather captives as the sand.
10   And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap up earth, and take it.
11   Then shall his mind change, and he shall transgress, and offend, ascribing this his power unto his god.

Habakkuk’s Second Question
12   Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.
13   You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity: why do you look upon them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?
14   And make men like the fish of the sea, like the  creeping  things,  that  have  no  ruler  over them?
15   They take up all of them with the hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet: therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16   Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn  incense  unto  their  dragnet;  because  by them their portion is luxurious, and their food plentiful.
17   Shall they therefore empty their net, and continually slay the nations without mercy?