Habakkuk 1:5-17

5“Look among the nations! Observe! Astonish yourself! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days. You will not believe it if it were told.

6For I am about to raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter, impetuous nation, marching all over the land, to seize dwellings not its own.

7Dreadful and terrifying, Its justice and dignity derive from itself.

8Its horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Its horsemen come galloping. Its horsemen are coming from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to eat.

9All of them come for violence— an assembling of faces to the east. He gathers captives like sand.

10He scoffs at kings, and rulers are a joke to him. He laughs at every stronghold— he heaps up dirt and takes it.

11Then a wind sweeps through and passes on. He is guilty— This, his strength, is his god.”

12Are not You from antiquity— Adonai my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Adonai, You have ordained him for judgment—as You, O Rock, have established him to chasten.

13With eyes too pure to see evil You cannot look at such trouble! Why do You look at the treacherous? Why do You remain silent when a wicked one swallows up those more righteous than him?

14You made man like the fish of the sea, like a creeping thing— with no one ruling over him.

15He brings up all with hook in jaw, drags away in his dragnet, or gathers with his fishing-net. Therefore he rejoices with glee.

16Therefore he sacrifices to his dragnet, and offers incense to his fishing-net. For through them his portion is rich and his food abundant.

17Will he empty his net for this reason —continually slaying nations— with no compassion?