I.
The introductory word
1:1
Hab. 1
:1
1:1
The burden which
1Habakkuk the prophet saw.
II.
The first dialogue between the prophet and Jehovah
1:2-11
A.
The prophet's inquiring of Jehovah
vv. 2-4
Hab. 1
:2
1:2
How long, O Jehovah, shall I cry
And You do
anot hear?
I cry out to You, Violence!
And You do not save.
Hab. 1
:3
1:3
Why do You cause me to see iniquity
And look upon wrong?
Indeed destruction and violence are before me;
And there is strife, and contention arises.
Hab. 1
:4
1:4
Therefore the law is ineffective,
And justice never goes forth;
For the wicked encompasses the righteous,
Therefore justice goes forth perverted.
B.
Jehovah's answer to the prophet
vv. 5-11
Hab. 1
:5
1:5
Look among the nations, and see,
And be
aamazed, utterly amazed.
For I am doing a work in your days
Which you would not believe if it were told
you.
Hab. 1
:6
1:6
For I am about to raise up the
aChaldeans,
That bitter and hasty nation
That marches through the breadth of the earth
To possess habitations that are not
1theirs.
Hab. 1
:7
1:7
They are terrible and dreadful;
Their judgment and their authority issue from themselves.
Hab. 1
:8
1:8
And their horses are swifter than leopards
And more agile than the wolves of evening.
And their horsemen prance about;
Indeed their horsemen come from
aafar;
They fly like an
beagle that hastens to devour.
Hab. 1
:9
1:9
All of them come to do violence;
The set of their faces is forward,
And they gather captives like sand.
Hab. 1
:10
1:10
Indeed they scoff at kings,
And potentates are a derision to them;
They deride every fortress,
For they heap up dirt and take it.
Hab. 1
:11
1:11
Then they will sweep through
like the wind and pass over
And thus become guilty; this — their strength — is their god.
III.
The second dialogue between the prophet and Jehovah
1:12—2:20
A.
The prophet's inquiring of Jehovah
1:12—2:1
Hab. 1
:12
1:12
Are You not from
aeverlasting, O Jehovah,
My God, my Holy One? We will not die.
O Jehovah, You have appointed
1them for
bjudgment;
And You, O Rock, have established
1them for correction.
Hab. 1
:13
1:13
You who are of purer eyes than to behold evil
And who cannot look upon wrong,
Why do You
alook upon them who deal treacherously
And keep silent when the wicked man swallows up him who is
1more righteous than he?
Hab. 1
:14
1:14
And You make man like the fish of the sea,
Like the creeping things, who have no one to rule for them.
Hab. 1
:15
1:15
They take all of them up with a
ahook;
They drag them off in their net
And gather them into their seine;
So they rejoice and exult.
Hab. 1
:16
1:16
Therefore they offer
asacrifices to their net
And burn incense to their seine,
For by them their portion is fat
And their food is plenteous.
Hab. 1
:17
1:17
Will they then empty their net
And continually slay the nations without sparing?
