Habakkuk: Faith Under Fire

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 eviland cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitorsand remain silent when the wicked swallows upthe 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 netand makes offerings to his dragnet;for by them he lives in luxury,and his food is rich. 17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?

1 I will take my stand at my watchpostand station myself on the tower,and look out to see what he will say to me,and what I will answer concerning my complaint. 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. 5 “Moreover, wine is a traitor,an arrogant man who is never at rest.His greed is as wide as Sheol;like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nationsand collects as his own all peoples.”