Habakkuk 1

Questions of Injustice Habakkuk 1:2–4

²Verse 2. Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save? ³Verse 3. Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. ⁴Verse 4. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.

God's Divine Plan Revealed Habakkuk 1:5–11

⁵Verse 5. “Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told you. ⁶Verse 6. For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷Verse 7. They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. ⁸Verse 8. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.

⁹Verse 9. All of them come for violence. Their hordes face the desert. He gathers prisoners like sand. ¹⁰Verse 10. Yes, he scoffs at kings, and princes are a derision to him. He laughs at every stronghold, for he builds up an earthen ramp, and takes it. ¹¹Verse 11. Then he sweeps by like the wind, and goes on. He is indeed guilty, whose strength is his god.”

Habakkuk's Challenge to God Habakkuk 1:12–14

¹²Verse 12. Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed him for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. ¹³Verse 13. You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, ¹⁴Verse 14. and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

The Chaldeans' Ruthlessness Habakkuk 1:15–17

¹⁵Verse 15. He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. ¹⁶Verse 16. Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious, and his food is good. ¹⁷Verse 17. Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?