meta: {"file": "/data/tomer/Sefaria-Export/txt/Tanakh/Prophets/Habakkuk/English/The Koren Jerusalem Bible.txt"}
text: Habakkuk
  חבקוק
  The Koren Jerusalem Bible
  
  
  Habakkuk
  
  
  
  
  
  The burden which Ĥavaqquq the prophet did see.
  O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear! I cry out to Thee of violence, and Thou wilt not save!
  Why dost Thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold mischief? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there is strife; and contention raises its head.
  Therefore Tora is slackened, and justice does not go out triumphantly: for the wicked man besets the righteous, so that justice goes out perverted.
  Look among the nations, and behold, and be struck with amazement: for a deed will be performed in your days, which you will not believe, though it be told 
  					you.
  For, lo, I raise up the Kasdim, a bitter and impetuous nation, who shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.
  They are terrible and dreadful: their justice and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.
  Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the wolves of the desert: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly like a vulture hastening to devour.
  They shall come all of them to do violence; their faces set towards the east: and they shall gather captives like sand.
  And they shall scoff at kings, and princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall denote every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.
  Then he shall vanish, and be gone like the wind, bearing his guilt: such is the strength imputed to his god.
  Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty 
  					God, thou hast established them for correction.
  Thou art of eyes too pure to behold evil, canst not look on iniquity: why dost Thou look upon them that deal treacherously, and dost hold Thy peace when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?
  And dost make men like the fishes of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
  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.
  Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their food plenteous.
  Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare to slay the nations continually?
  
  
  
  I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say to me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
  And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets, that he who reads it may run.
  For there is still a vision for the appointed time; and it speaks concerning the end, and does not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay.
  Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.
  Moreover, wine is treacherous; the arrogant man shall not abide, whose desires gape wide like She᾽ol; and like death, he cannot be satisfied: for he has gathered to himself all the nations, and has collected to him all the peoples:
  shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increases that which is not his! how long? and that loads himself with property taken in pledge!
  Shall not thy exactors rise up suddenly against thee, and thy shakers awaken, and thou shalt be for plunder to them?
  Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city, and all that dwell in it.
  Woe to him that gets evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!
  Thou hast devised shame to thy house by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy life.
  For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.
  Woe to him that builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity!
  Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the peoples labour only for fire, and the nations weary themselves only for vanity?
  For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
  Woe to him that gives his neighbour drink, adding thy venom to it, and making him drunken also, that thou mayst look on their nakedness!
  Thou art filled with shame instead of glory: drink thou also, and stagger: the cup of the Lord’s right hand shall be turned to thee, and shameful disgrace shall be on thy glory.
  For the violence done to Levanon covers thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city, and to all that dwell therein.
  What use is there in a carved idol, that its carver has fashioned, a molten image, and a teacher of lies? that the maker should trust in his own manufacture, when he makes dumb idols?
  Woe to him that says to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, Can it teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.
  But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
  
  
  
  A prayer of the prophet Ĥavaqquq (upon Shigyonot).
  O Lord, I have heard the report of Thee, and I was afraid: O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
  God comes from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran.(Sela.) His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
  And there is a brightness as the light; rays issue from his hand: and there the hiding of his power is lodged.
  Before him goes the pestilence, and burning coals go forth at his feet.
  He stands and shakes the earth: he beholds, and causes the nations to tremble; and the everlasting mountains are dashed in pieces; the eternal hills bow. His ways are as of old.
  I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midyan do tremble.
  Is the Lord displeased against the rivers? is Thy anger against the rivers? is Thy wrath against the sea? that Thou ridest upon Thy horses, Thy chariots of salvation?
  Thy bow is stripped bare, according to the oaths Thou didst address to the tribes. (Sela.) Thou wilt cleave the earth with rivers.
  The mountains saw Thee, and they tremble: the stream of water passed by: the deep uttered its voice, and lifted up its hands on high.
  The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of Thy arrows as they speed, and at the shining of Thy glittering spear.
  Thou dost march through the land in indignation, Thou dost thresh the nations in anger.
  Thou hast come forth for the salvation of Thy people, for the salvation of Thy anointed, Thou hast crushed the head of the house of the wicked, uncovering it from the foundation to the neck. (Sela.)
  Thou hast pierced with his own shafts the head of his warriors, who come out as a storm wind to scatter me: their rejoicing is as to devour the poor secretly.
  Thou hast trodden through the sea with Thy horses, through the heap of great waters.
  When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the sound: rottenness enters my bones, and I tremble where I stand, that I should wait for the day of trouble: when he comes up against the people whom 
  					he invades.
  Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
  yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
  God, the Lord is my strength, and he makes my feet like those of deers, and he guides me on my high places (to the Menazzeah; on my stringed instruments).