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Habakkuk

1The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

The Prophet’s Complaint

² O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
   and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
   and you will not save?
³ Why do you make me see wrongdoing
   and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
   strife and contention arise.
⁴ So the law becomes slack
   and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
   therefore judgement comes forth perverted.

⁵ Look at the nations, and see!
   Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days
   that you would not believe if you were told.
⁶ For I am rousing the Chaldeans,
   that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth
   to seize dwellings not their own.
⁷ Dread and fearsome are they;
   their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
³ God came from Teman,
   the Holy One from Mount Paran.
          Selah
His glory covered the heavens,
   and the earth was full of his praise.
⁴ The brightness was like the sun;
   rays came forth from his hand,
   where his power lay hidden.
⁵ Before him went pestilence,
   and plague followed close behind.
⁶ He stopped and shook the earth;
   he looked and made the nations tremble.
The eternal mountains were shattered;
   along his ancient pathways
   the everlasting hills sank low.
¹⁶ I hear, and I tremble within;
   my lips quiver at the sound.
Rottenness enters into my bones,
   and my steps tremble^* beneath me.
I wait quietly for the day of calamity
   to come upon the people who attack us.

Trust and Joy in the Midst of Trouble

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not blossom,
   and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
   and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
   and there is no herd in the stalls,