The Lantern

Habakkuk1

Habakkuk’s First Complaint

The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and you will not hear! even cry out to you of violence, and you will not save!

Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to see grievance? for plundering and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

Therefore the law is slackened, and judgment never goes forth: for the wicked does surround the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceeds.

The LORD’s Answer

Look among the pagans, and regard, and wonder greatly: for I will work a work in your days, which you will not believe, though it be told you.

For, look, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.

They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.

They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.

Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power to his god.

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.

You are of purer eyes than to see evil, and cannot look on iniquity: why do you look upon them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?

And make men as the fish of the sea, as the creeping creatures, that have no ruler over them?

They take up all of them with the hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their dragnet; because by them their portion is fat, and their food plenteous.

Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?