Habakkuk’s First Complaint

1The lifting up which Habbakuk the prophet saw.

2How long, O Jehovah, did I cry for help, and thou wilt not bear? I will cry to thee violence, and thou wilt not save.

3Wherefore wilt thou cause me to see vanity and cause me to look at labor? and oppression and violence before me, and there will be contention, and strife will be raised up.

4For this, the law will be slack, and judgment will not go forth forever: for the unjust surrounds the just; for this perverted judgment will go forth.

The LORD’s Answer

5See ye among the nations, and look, and wonder; ye shall wonder: for the working a work in your days ye will not believe if it shall be recounted.

6For behold me raising up the Chaldeans, the nation bitter and hasty, going upon the wide places of the land to possess the dwelling not to him.

7He terrible and dreadful: his judgment and his elevation shall come forth from himself,

8And his horses were swift above panthers, and they were sharp above the wolves of the evening: and his horsemen were spread, and his horsemen shall come from far off; they shall fly as the eagle hastening to eat.

9Wholly for violence shall he come: the host of their faces forwards, and he shall gather a captivity as the sand.

10And he shall scoff at kings, and princes a derision to him: at every fortress he shall deride, and he shall heap up dust and take it.

11Then the spirit changed, and he will pass over, and he transgressed: this his strength is his God.

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
(Psalm 11:1–7)

12Art thou not from of old, O Jehovah, my holy God? We shall not die. O Jehovah, thou didst set him for judgment; and O Rock, thou didst found him for correction.

13Being pure of eyes from beholding evil, and wilt not be able to look upon labor: wherefore wilt thou look upon the transgressors? wilt thou be silent in the unjust swallowing the just above him?

14And wilt thou make man as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping thing no ruler over him?

15And he brought up a completion with the book, he will drag him in his net, and he will gather him in his fishnet: for this he will rejoice and be glad.

16For this he will sacrifice to his net and burn incense to his fish-net; for by them his portion fat and his food growing fat.

17For this, will he empty his net; and he will not spare to slay the nations continually.