Nineveh’s Complete Ruin

1Woe to the bloody city, completely full of lies and pillage;

Her prey never departs.

2The noise of the whip,

The noise of the rattling of the wheel,

Galloping horses

And bounding chariots!

3Horsemen charging,

Swords flashing, spears gleaming,

Many slain, a mass of corpses,

And countless dead bodies—

They stumble over the dead bodies!

4All because of the many harlotries of the harlot,

The charming one, the mistress of sorceries,

Who sells nations by her harlotries

And families by her sorceries.

5“Behold, I am against you,” declares the Lord of hosts;

“And I will lift up your skirts over your face,

And show to the nations your nakedness

And to the kingdoms your disgrace.

6I will throw filth on you

And make you vile,

And set you up as a spectacle.

7And it will come about that all who see you

Will shrink from you and say,

‘Nineveh is devastated!

Who will grieve for her?’

Where will I seek comforters for you?”

8Are you better than No-amon,

Which was situated by the waters of the Nile,

With water surrounding her,

Whose rampart was the sea,

Whose wall consisted of the sea?

9Ethiopia was her might,

And Egypt too, without limits.

Put and Lubim were among her helpers.

10Yet she became an exile,

She went into captivity;

Also her small children were dashed to pieces

At the head of every street;

They cast lots for her honorable men,

And all her great men were bound with fetters.

11You too will become drunk,

You will be hidden.

You too will search for a refuge from the enemy.

12All your fortifications are fig trees with ripe fruit—

When shaken, they fall into the eater’s mouth.

13Behold, your people are women in your midst!

The gates of your land are opened wide to your enemies;

Fire consumes your gate bars.

14Draw for yourself water for the siege!

Strengthen your fortifications!

Go into the clay and tread the mortar!

Take hold of the brick mold!

15There fire will consume you,

The sword will cut you down;

It will consume you as the locust does.

Multiply yourself like the creeping locust,

Multiply yourself like the swarming locust.

16You have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven—

The creeping locust strips and flies away.

17Your guardsmen are like the swarming locust.

Your marshals are like hordes of grasshoppers

Settling in the stone walls on a cold day.

The sun rises and they flee,

And the place where they are is not known.

18Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria;

Your nobles are lying down.

Your people are scattered on the mountains

And there is no one to regather them.

19There is no relief for your breakdown,

Your wound is incurable.

All who hear about you

Will clap their hands over you,

For on whom has not your evil passed continually?

The Book of

HABAKKUK

Chaldeans Used to Punish Judah

1The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2How long, O Lord, will I call for help,

And You will not hear?

I cry out to You, “Violence!”

Yet You do not save.

3Why do You make me see iniquity,

And cause me to look on wickedness?

Yes, destruction and violence are before me;

Strife exists and contention arises.

4Therefore the law is ignored

And justice is never upheld.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

Therefore justice comes out perverted.

5“Look among the nations! Observe!

Be astonished! Wonder!

Because I am doing something in your days—

You would not believe if you were told.

6For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,

That fierce and impetuous people

Who march throughout the earth

To seize dwelling places which are not theirs.

7They are dreaded and feared;

Their justice and authority originate with themselves.

8Their horses are swifter than leopards

And keener than wolves in the evening.

Their horsemen come galloping,

Their horsemen come from afar;

They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.

9All of them come for violence.

Their horde of faces moves forward.

They collect captives like sand.

10They mock at kings

And rulers are a laughing matter to them.

They laugh at every fortress

And heap up rubble to capture it.

11Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on.

But they will be held guilty,

They whose strength is their god.”

12Are You not from everlasting,

O Lord, my God, my Holy One?

We will not die.

You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge;

And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.

13Your eyes are too pure to approve evil,

And You can not look on wickedness with favor.

Why do You look with favor

On those who deal treacherously?

Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up

Those more righteous than they?

14Why have You made men like the fish of the sea,

Like creeping things without a ruler over them?

15The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook,

Drag them away with their net,

And gather them together in their fishing net.

Therefore they rejoice and are glad.

16Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net

And burn incense to their fishing net;

Because through these things their catch is large,

And their food is plentiful.

17Will they therefore empty their net

And continually slay nations without sparing?

God Answers the Prophet

1I will stand on my guard post

And station myself on the rampart;

And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,

And how I may reply when I am reproved.

2Then the Lord answered me and said,

“Record the vision

And inscribe it on tablets,

That the one who reads it may run.

3For the vision is yet for the appointed time;

It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

4“Behold, as for the proud one,

His soul is not right within him;

But the righteous will live by his faith.

5Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man,

So that he does not stay at home.

He enlarges his appetite like Sheol,

And he is like death, never satisfied.

He also gathers to himself all nations

And collects to himself all peoples.

6“Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him,

Even mockery and insinuations against him

And say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his—

For how long—

And makes himself rich with loans?’

7Will not your creditors rise up suddenly,

And those who collect from you awaken?

Indeed, you will become plunder for them.

8Because you have looted many nations,

All the remainder of the peoples will loot you—

Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,

To the town and all its inhabitants.

9“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house

To put his nest on high,

To be delivered from the hand of calamity!

10You have devised a shameful thing for your house

By cutting off many peoples;

So you are sinning against yourself.

11Surely the stone will cry out from the wall,

And the rafter will answer it from the framework.

12“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed

And founds a town with violence!

13Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts

That peoples toil for fire,

And nations grow weary for nothing?

14For the earth will be filled

With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,

As the waters cover the sea.

15“Woe to you who make your neighbors drink,

Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk

So as to look on their nakedness!

16You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor.

Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness.

The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you,

And utter disgrace will come upon your glory.

17For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,

And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them,

Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,

To the town and all its inhabitants.

18“What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it,

Or an image, a teacher of falsehood?

For its maker trusts in his own handiwork

When he fashions speechless idols.

19Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’

To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’

And that is your teacher?

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

And there is no breath at all inside it.

20But the Lord is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth be silent before Him.”

God’s Deliverance of His People

1A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.

2Lord, I have heard the report about You and I fear.

O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years,

In the midst of the years make it known;

In wrath remember mercy.

3God comes from Teman,

And the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah.

His splendor covers the heavens,

And the earth is full of His praise.

4His radiance is like the sunlight;

He has rays flashing from His hand,

And there is the hiding of His power.

5Before Him goes pestilence,

And plague comes after Him.

6He stood and surveyed the earth;

He looked and startled the nations.

Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered,

The ancient hills collapsed.

His ways are everlasting.

7I saw the tents of Cushan under distress,

The tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling.

8Did the Lord rage against the rivers,

Or was Your anger against the rivers,

Or was Your wrath against the sea,

That You rode on Your horses,

On Your chariots of salvation?

9Your bow was made bare,

The rods of chastisement were sworn. Selah.

You cleaved the earth with rivers.

10The mountains saw You and quaked;

The downpour of waters swept by.

The deep uttered forth its voice,

It lifted high its hands.

11Sun and moon stood in their places;

They went away at the light of Your arrows,

At the radiance of Your gleaming spear.

12In indignation You marched through the earth;

In anger You trampled the nations.

13You went forth for the salvation of Your people,

For the salvation of Your anointed.

You struck the head of the house of the evil

To lay him open from thigh to neck. Selah.

14You pierced with his own spears

The head of his throngs.

They stormed in to scatter us;

Their exultation was like those

Who devour the oppressed in secret.

15You trampled on the sea with Your horses,

On the surge of many waters.

16I heard and my inward parts trembled,

At the sound my lips quivered.

Decay enters my bones,

And in my place I tremble.

Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,

For the people to arise who will invade us.

17Though the fig tree should not blossom

And there be no fruit on the vines,

Though the yield of the olive should fail

And the fields produce no food,

Though the flock should be cut off from the fold

And there be no cattle in the stalls,

18Yet I will exult in the Lord,

I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

19The Lord God is my strength,

And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet,

And makes me walk on my high places.

For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.