Habakkuk 1 Free Bible Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
1 This is the message that Habakkuk saw in vision.
1 The revelation which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 Lord, how long do I have to cry out for help and you don't listen? I cry out, “Violence!” but you don't save us from it.
2 Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save?
3 Why do you force me to see this wickedness and suffering? Why do you just observe such destruction and violence? Arguments and fighting happen right in front of me!
3 Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.
4 As a result the law is paralyzed, and justice never wins. The wicked crowd out those who do right so that the course of justice is perverted.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.
5 Look around at the nations, watch and be surprised and amazed. Something is going to happen in your time that you wouldn't believe even if you were told.
5 “Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days which you will not believe though it is told you.
6 Watch! I am raising up the Babylonians, a cruel and brutal people who will march across the world to seize other lands.
6 For, behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7 They are fearsome and terrifying, and so proud of themselves that they set their own rules.
7 They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses are faster than leopards and fiercer than hungry wolves. Their cavalry charges, racing in from far away. Like eagles, they swoop down to eat their prey.
8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.
9 Here they come, all intent on violence. Their armies advance in frontal assault as rapidly as the desert wind, capturing so many prisoners they are like sand.
9 All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand.
10 They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh in scorn at fortresses—they pile up earth ramps and capture them.
10 Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it.
11 Then they sweep on by like the wind and are gone. They are guilty because their own strength is their god.
11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.”
12 Haven't you existed from eternity past? You are Lord my God, my Holy One, you do not die. Lord, you appointed them to execute judgment; God our Rock, you sent them to punish us.
12 Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed them for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil; you cannot stand the sight of wrong. So why do you put up with untrustworthy people? Why are you silent when the wicked destroy those who do less evil than they do?
13 You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he,
14 You make people become like fish in the sea, or like crawling insects, that have no ruler.
14 and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them?
15 They drag everyone up with hooks, they pull them out with nets, catching them in dragnets. Then they happily celebrate.
15 He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad.
16 They worship their nets as if they were gods, making sacrifices and burning incense to them, because by their nets they live in luxury, eating rich food.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious and his food is good.
17 Will they keep on unsheathing their swords forever, killing nations without mercy?
17 Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?
People & places in this chapter
From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.
People
Habakkuk
The prophet who received the burden of his book in a vision.
Cited in the guide: Habakkuk 1:1; Habakkuk 3:1
Cross references (16)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Nahum 1:1; Isaiah 22:1
- 2 Psalm 22:1–2; Psalm 13:1–2; Lamentations 3:8; Jeremiah 14:9; Psalm 94:3
- 3 Psalm 55:9–11; Jeremiah 9:2–6; Micah 7:1–4; Ecclesiastes 5:8; Jeremiah 20:8
- 4 Psalm 94:20–21; Isaiah 1:21–23; Psalm 119:126; Job 21:7; Ezekiel 9:9
- 5 Acts 13:40–41; Isaiah 29:14; Lamentations 4:12; Jeremiah 5:12–13; Jeremiah 9:25–26
- 6 2 Kings 24:2; 2 Chronicles 36:6; Jeremiah 5:15; 2 Chronicles 36:17; Jeremiah 4:6
- 7 Jeremiah 39:5–9; Jeremiah 52:9–11; Isaiah 18:7; Deuteronomy 5:27; Deuteronomy 5:19
- 8 Jeremiah 4:13; Zephaniah 3:3; Deuteronomy 28:49; Hosea 8:1; Ezekiel 17:3
- 9 Jeremiah 25:9; Psalm 139:18; Job 29:18; Habakkuk 2:5–13; Judges 7:12
- 10 2 Chronicles 36:6; 2 Chronicles 36:10; Jeremiah 32:24; Isaiah 14:16; Jeremiah 33:4
- 11 Daniel 5:20; Daniel 4:30–34; Daniel 5:3–4; Jeremiah 4:11–12
- 12 Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 90:2; Deuteronomy 33:27; Jeremiah 46:28; Jeremiah 30:11
- 13 Psalm 5:4–5; Psalm 34:15–16; Jeremiah 12:1–2; Habakkuk 1:3–4; Proverbs 31:8–9
- 15 Amos 4:2; Jeremiah 16:16; Psalm 10:9; John 21:6–11; Ezekiel 35:15
- 16 Daniel 4:30; Habakkuk 1:11; Ezekiel 28:3; Deuteronomy 8:17; Isaiah 37:24
- 17 Isaiah 14:6; Jeremiah 25:9–26; Ezekiel 25:1–17; Jeremiah 52:1–34; Habakkuk 2:17
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences