Habakkuk 1

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE	DOUAI-RHEIMS
1 The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet received in vision.	1 The burden that Habacuc the prophet saw.
2 How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not intervene.	2 How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? shall I cry out to thee suffering violence, and thou wilt not save?
3 Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.	3 Why hast thou shewn me iniquity and grievance, to see rapine and injustice before me? and there is a judgment, but opposition is more powerful.
4 This is why the law is benumbed, and judgment is never rendered: Because the wicked circumvent the just; this is why judgment comes forth perverted.	4 Therefore the law is torn in pieces, and judgment cometh not to the end: because the wicked prevaileth against the just, therefore wrong judgment goeth forth.
5 Look over the nations and see, and be utterly amazed! For a work is being done in your days that you would not have believed, were it told.	5 Behold ye among the nations, and see: wonder, and be astonished: for a work is done in your days, which no man will believe when it shall be told.
6 For see, I am raising up Chaldea, that bitter and unruly people, That marches the breadth of the land to take dwellings not his own.	6 For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, marching upon the breadth of the earth, to possess the dwelling places that are not their own.
7 Terrible and dreadful is he, from himself derive his law and his majesty.	7 They are dreadful, and terrible: from themselves shall their judgment, and their burden proceed.
8 Swifter than leopards are his horses, and keener than wolves at evening. His horses prance, his horsemen come from afar: They fly like the eagle hastening to devour;	8 Their horses are lighter than leopards, and swifter than evening wolves; and their horsemen shall be spread abroad: for their horsemen shall come from afar, they shall fly as an eagle that maketh haste to eat.
9 each comes for the rapine, Their combined onset is that of a stormwind that heaps up captives like sand.	9 They shall all come to the prey, their face is like a burning wind: and they shall gather together captives as the sand.
10 He scoffs at kings, and princes are his laughingstock; He laughs at any fortress, heaps up a ramp, and conquers it.	10 And their prince shall triumph over kings, and princes shall be his laughingstock: and he shall laugh at every strong hold, and shall cast up a mount, and shall take it.
11 Then he veers like the wind and is gone-- this culprit who makes his own strength his god!	11 Then shall his spirit be changed, and he shall pass, and fall: this is his strength of his god.
12 Are you not from eternity, O LORD, my holy God, immortal? O LORD you have marked him for judgment, O Rock , you have readied him for punishment!	12 Wast thou not from the beginning, O Lord my God, my holy one, and we shall not die? Lord, thou hast appointed him for judgment: and made him strong for correction.
13 Too pure are your eyes to look upon evil, and the sight of misery you cannot endure. Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence while the wicked man devours one more just than himself?	13 Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest thou upon them that do unjust things, and holdest thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more just than himself?
14 You have made man like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler.	14 And thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping things that have no ruler.
15 He brings them all up with his hook, he hauls them away with his net, He gathers them in his seine; and so he rejoices and exults.	15 He lifted up all them with his hook, he drew them in his drag, and gathered them into his net: for this he will be glad and rejoice.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his seine; For thanks to them his portion is generous, and his repast sumptuous.	16 Therefore will he offer victims to his drag, and he will sacrifice to his net: because through them his portion is made fat, and his meat dainty.
17 Shall he, then, keep on brandishing his sword to slay peoples without mercy?	17 For this cause therefore he spreadeth his net, and will not spare continually to slay the nations.