¹ The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

Habakkuk's Complaint

 ² How long, LORD, must I call for help,
       but you do not listen?
       Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
       but you do not save?

    ³ Why do you make me look at injustice?
       Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
       Destruction and violence are before me;
       there is strife, and conflict abounds.

    ⁴ Therefore the law is paralyzed,
       and justice never prevails.
       The wicked hem in the righteous,
       so that justice is perverted.

The LORD 's Answer

 ⁵ "Look at the nations and watch—
       and be utterly amazed.
       For I am going to do something in your days
       that you would not believe,
       even if you were told.

    ⁶ I am raising up the Babylonians, ^[a]
       that ruthless and impetuous people,
       who sweep across the whole earth
       to seize dwellings not their own.

    ⁷ They are a feared and dreaded people;
       they are a law to themselves
       and promote their own honor.

    ⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,
       fiercer than wolves at dusk.
       Their cavalry gallops headlong;
       their horsemen come from afar.
       They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;

    ⁹ they all come bent on violence.
       Their hordes ^[b] advance like a desert wind
       and gather prisoners like sand.

    ¹⁰ They mock kings
       and scoff at rulers.
       They laugh at all fortified cities;
       by building earthen ramps they capture them.

    ¹¹ Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—
       guilty people, whose own strength is their god."