Yearly archives: 2024

Habakkuk’s Complaint

How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in
the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

The Lord’s Answer

“Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe,
even if you were told.
I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.

They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor.
Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar.They fly
like a vulture swooping to devour; they all come bent on violence.

Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they
build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind
and go on—guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”

Habakkuk 1:2-11