¹ The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. ² O LORD, how long will I cry, and you will not hear ! even cry out to you of violence, and you will not save! ³ Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to see grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. ⁴ Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment does never go forward: for the wicked does surround about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds. ⁵ See you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which you will not believe, even though it be told [you]. ⁶ For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which will march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces [that are] not theirs. ⁷ They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity will proceed of themselves. ⁸ Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen will spread themselves, and their horsemen will come from far; they will fly as the eagle that hurried to eat. ⁹ They will come all for violence: their faces will sup up as the east wind, and they will gather the captivity as the sand. ¹⁰ And they will scoff at the kings, and the princes will be a scorn to them: they will deride every strong hold; for they will heap dust, and take it. ¹¹ Then will his mind change, and he will pass over, and offend, imputing this his power to his god. ¹² are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we will not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction. ¹³ you are of purer eyes than to see evil, and can not look on iniquity: why lookest you on them that deal treacherously, and holds your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he? ¹⁴ And makes men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? ¹⁵ They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad. ¹⁶ Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. ¹⁷ will they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to kill the nations?