Nahum 3

Woe to Nineveh

1  Woe to the bloody city,
all full of lies and plunder—
no end to the prey!
2  The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel,
galloping horse and bounding chariot!
3  Horsemen charging,
flashing sword and glittering spear,
hosts of slain,
heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble over the bodies!
4  And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute,
graceful and of deadly charms,
who betrays nations with her whorings,
and peoples with her charms.

5  Behold, I am against you,
declares the Lord of hosts,
and will lift up your skirts over your face;
and I will make nations look at your nakedness
and kingdoms at your shame.
6  I will throw filth at you
and treat you with contempt
and make you a spectacle.
7  And all who look at you will shrink from you and say,
Wasted is Nineveh; who will grieve for her?
Where shall I seek comforters for you?

8  Are you better than Thebest
that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
her rampart a sea,
and water her wall?
9  Cush was her strength;
Egypt too, and that without limit;
Put and the Libyans were hert helpers.

10  Yet she became an exile;
she went into captivity;
her infants were dashed in pieces
at the head of every street;
for her honored men lots were cast,
and all her great men were bound in chains.
11  You also will be drunken;
you will go into hiding;
you will seek a refuge from the enemy.
12  All your fortresses are like fig trees
with first-ripe figs—
if shaken they fall
into the mouth of the eater.
13  Behold, your troops
are women in your midst.
The gates of your land
are wide open to your enemies;
fire has devoured your bars.

14  Draw water for the siege;
strengthen your forts;
go into the clay;
tread the mortar;
take hold of the brick mold!
15  There will the fire devour you;
the sword will cut you off.
It will devour you like the locust.
Multiply yourselves like the locust;
multiply like the grasshopper!
16  You increased your merchants
more than the stars of the heavens.
The locust spreads its wings and flies away.

17  Your princes are like grasshoppers,
your scribest like clouds of locusts
settling on the fences
in a day of cold—
when the sun rises, they fly away;
no one knows where they are.

18  Your shepherds are asleep,
O king of Assyria;
your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
with none to gather them.
19  There is no easing your hurt;
your wound is grievous.
All who hear the news about you
clap their hands over you.
For upon whom has not come
your unceasing evil?

Habakkuk 1

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

Habakkuk's Complaint

2  O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you "Violence!"
and you will not save?
3  Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4  So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.

The Lord's Answer

5  "Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6  For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
7  They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
8  Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
9  They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
10  At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
11  Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!"

Habakkuk's Second Complaint

12  Are you not from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
13  You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?
14  You make mankind like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.
15  He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his dragnet;
so he rejoices and is glad.
16  Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his dragnet;
for by them he lives in luxury,t
and his food is rich.
17  Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and mercilessly killing nations forever?

Habakkuk 2

1  I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

The Righteous Shall Live by His Faith

2 And the Lord answered me:
"Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
3  For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.

4  "Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.t

5  "Moreover, winet is a traitor,
an arrogant man who is never at rest.t
His greed is as wide as Sheol;
like death he has never enough.
He gathers for himself all nations
and collects as his own all peoples."

Woe to the Chaldeans

6 Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say,
"Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—
for how long?—
and loads himself with pledges!"
7  Will not your debtors suddenly arise,
and those awake who will make you tremble?
Then you will be spoil for them.
8  Because you have plundered many nations,
all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you,
for the blood of man and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who dwell in them.

9  "Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,
to set his nest on high,
to be safe from the reach of harm!
10  You have devised shame for your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have forfeited your life.
11  For the stone will cry out from the wall,
and the beam from the woodwork respond.

12  "Woe to him who builds a town with blood
and founds a city on iniquity!
13  Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts
that peoples labor merely for fire,
and nations weary themselves for nothing?
14  For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

15  "Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink—
you pour out your wrath and make them drunk,
in order to gaze at their nakedness!
16  You will have your fill of shame instead of glory.
Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision!
The cup in the Lord's right hand
will come around to you,
and utter shame will come upon your glory!
17  The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them,
for the blood of man and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who dwell in them.

18  "What profit is an idol
when its maker has shaped it,
a metal image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in his own creation
when he makes speechless idols!
19  Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;
to a silent stone, Arise!
Can this teach?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all in it.
20  But the Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth keep silence before him."