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⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,
   more menacing than wolves at dusk;
   their horses charge.
Their horsemen come from far away;
   they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
⁹ They all come for violence,
   with faces pressing^* forward;
   they gather captives like sand.
¹⁰ At kings they scoff,
   and of rulers they make sport.
They laugh at every fortress,
   and heap up earth to take it.
¹¹ Then they sweep by like the wind;
   they transgress and become guilty;
   their own might is their god!

¹² Are you not from of old,
   O Lord my God, my Holy One?
   You^* shall not die.
O Lord, you have marked them for judgement;
   and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
¹³ Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
   and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous,
   and are silent when the wicked swallow
   those more righteous than they?
¹⁴ You have made people like the fish of the sea,
   like crawling things that have no ruler.

¹⁵ The enemy^* brings all of them up with a hook;
   he drags them out with his net,
he gathers them in his seine;
   so he rejoices and exults.
¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net
   and makes offerings to his seine;
for by them his portion is lavish,
   and his food is rich.
¹⁷ Is he then to keep on emptying his net,
   and destroying nations without mercy?

⁵ Moreover, wealth^* is treacherous;
   the arrogant do not endure.
They open their throats wide as Sheol;
   like Death they never have enough.
They gather all nations for themselves,
   and collect all peoples as their own.

The Woes of the Wicked

6 Shall not everyone taunt such people and, with mocking riddles, say about them,
‘Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!’
   How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?
⁷ Will not your own creditors suddenly rise,
   and those who make you tremble wake up?
   Then you will be booty for them.
⁸ Because you have plundered many nations,
   all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you—
because of human bloodshed, and violence to the earth,
   to cities and all who live in them.

⁹ ‘Alas for you who get evil gain for your houses,
   setting your nest on high
   to be safe from the reach of harm!’
¹⁰ You have devised shame for your house
   by cutting off many peoples;
   you have forfeited your life.
¹¹ The very stones will cry out from the wall,
   and the plaster^* will respond from the woodwork.

¹² ‘Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed,
   and found a city on iniquity!’
¹³ Is it not from the Lord of hosts
   that peoples labour only to feed the flames,
   and nations weary themselves for nothing?
¹⁴ But the earth will be filled
   with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
   as the waters cover the sea.

¹⁵ ‘Alas for you who make your neighbours drink,
   pouring out your wrath^* until they are drunk,
   in order to gaze on their nakedness!’
¹⁶ You will be sated with contempt instead of glory.
   Drink, you yourself, and stagger!^*
The cup in the Lord’s right hand
   will come around to you,
   and shame will come upon your glory!
¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you;
   the destruction of the animals will terrify you—^*
because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth,
   to cities and all who live in them.

¹⁸ What use is an idol
   once its maker has shaped it—
   a cast image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in what has been made,
   though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!
¹⁹ Alas for you who say to the wood, ‘Wake up!’
   to silent stone, ‘Rouse yourself!’
   Can it teach?
See, it is plated with gold and silver,
   and there is no breath in it at all.

²⁰ But the Lord is in his holy temple;
   let all the earth keep silence before him!

3A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk according to Shigionoth.

The Prophet’s Prayer

² O Lord, I have heard of your renown,
   and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work.
In our own time revive it;
   in our own time make it known;
   in wrath may you remember mercy.