Habakkuk 1:4-6
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
4 This is why the law is numb[a]
and justice never comes,
For the wicked surround the just;(A)
this is why justice comes forth perverted.
God’s Response
5 [b]Look over the nations and see!
Be utterly amazed!
For a work is being done in your days
that you would not believe, were it told.(B)
6 For now I am raising up the Chaldeans,(C)
that bitter and impulsive people,
Who march the breadth of the land
to take dwellings not their own.
Footnotes
- 1:4 The law is numb: because the Lord has been silent, the Law, whether in the form of the scroll found in the Temple in the time of Josiah (2 Kgs 22) or in the form of divine instruction given by priests and prophets, has proved ineffective and so appeared to be cold, unreceptive, and powerless. For the Law to be credible, the Lord must see to it that the wicked are punished and the just rewarded.
- 1:5–7 Habakkuk interprets the Babylonian defeat of Egypt at Carchemish (605 B.C.) as the answer to his complaint: the Lord will send the Chaldean empire against Judah as punishment for their sins.
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