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The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.
Habakkuk's Complaint
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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?
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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.
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Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
The LORD's Answer
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"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.
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I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
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They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor.
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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 sweeping to devour;
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they all come vent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand.
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They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities;
they build earthen ramps and capture them.
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Then ghey sweep past like the wind and go on - guilty men,
whose own strength is their god."
Habakkuk's Second Complaint
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O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One,
we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment;
O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
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Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up
those more righteous than themselves?
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You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that ahve no ruler.
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The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his dragnet;
and so he rejoices and is glad.
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Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
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Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
