Habakkuk Waits
1 I will stand at my watch,
and set myself on the ramparts,
and will look out to see what he will say to me
and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
The Lord Responds
2 The Lord answered me,
“Write the vision,
and make it plain on tablets,
so that the herald may easily read it.
3 For the vision is yet for the appointed time,
and it hurries toward the end and will not prove false.
Though it takes time, wait for it,
because it will surely come. It will not delay.
4 Look at the one who is puffed up with pride.
From within, he is not upright,
but the righteous one will live because of his faith.
5 Wine further deceives the proud.
An arrogant man will not stay home,
but increases his desire like Sheol,
and like death, he cannot be satisfied,
but gathers to himself all the nations,
and heaps to himself all peoples.
Woe to the Chaldeans
6 Will not all of them mock him in parables,
and taunt him in proverbs, saying,
‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his
and who enriches himself through extortion!’
For how long?’
7 Will your creditors not rise up suddenly,
and wake up those who make you tremble,
and you will be their victim?
8 Because you have plundered many nations,
the remnant of the peoples will plunder you,
because of bloodshed,
and the violence done to the land,
to the city and to all who dwell in it.
9 Woe to him who builds his house with dishonest gain,
that he may set his nest on high,
to protect himself from disaster!
10 You have brought shame to your house,
by destroying many peoples,
and have sinned against yourself.
11 For the stones will cry out from the walls,
and the beams from the woodwork will answer it.
12 Woe to him who builds a town with blood,
and establishes a city by iniquity!
13 Is it not from the Lord of Hosts
that the people labor merely to feed the fire,
and the nations weary themselves for nothing?
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge
of the glory of the Lord,
as water covers the sea.
15 “Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink,
pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk,
so that you may gaze at their naked bodies!
16 You are filled with shame, and not glory.
You will also drink, and be exposed!
The cup of the right hand of the Lord
will come around to you,
and disgrace will cover your glory.
17 For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
because of the destruction of the animals,
which terrified them,
because of the bloodshed,
and the violence done to the land,
to every city and to those who dwell in them.
18 What value does the engraved image have,
after its maker has carved it,
the molten image, a teacher of lies,
that he who formed it trusts in it–
mute idols?
19 Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’
or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’
Is it able to teach?
Look, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all within it.
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth be silent before him!”