Habakkuk

How long, LORD? I keep shouting for help and you don’t listen. I keep crying “Violence!” and you don’t save anyone. Why make me watch all this? Fighting everywhere. The law’s gone limp, and justice never wins.

Replying to @habakkuk

He answered. Look round at the nations and be amazed, he said. I’m doing something in your days you wouldn’t believe even if you were told. I’m raising up the Babylonians.

Replying to @habakkuk

His description of them, not mine. Horses faster than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. They laugh at kings. They laugh at every fortress, pile up earth against it and take it. Their own strength is their god.

Round two. LORD, you’re from everlasting. My God, my Holy One. Your eyes are too pure to look at evil. So why do you put up with the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow people better than them?

Replying to @habakkuk

He treats people like fish. Hauls them in with hooks and nets, then burns incense to his net, because the net made him rich.

Going up on the wall to keep watch. I’m going to see what he says to me, and what I’ll say back when I’m put right.

He answered. Write the vision down. Make it plain on tablets, so someone can read it at a run. It’s waiting for its time. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will come, and it won’t be late.

Look at the proud one. He isn’t right inside. But the one who is right with God will live by faith.

They’ll all be mocking him in the end. The one who piles up what isn’t his. The one who builds his house on dishonest money, to put his nest up high out of harm’s way. The stones in the wall will cry out, and the beams will answer them.

The earth will be filled with knowing the glory of the LORD, the way the waters cover the sea.

What use is an idol? Somebody carves it, then trusts the thing he made. Disaster for anyone who says to a block of wood, “Wake up!” Covered in gold and silver, and not a breath inside it.

But the LORD is in his holy temple. Let the whole earth be silent before him.

LORD, I’ve heard what you’ve done, and I’m in awe. Do it again in our day. Make it known in our time. And when you’re angry, remember mercy.

Wrote a prayer-song about God coming out like in the old days. The mountains saw him and shook. The deep roared. The sun and moon stood still.

I heard it and my insides churned. My lips were shaking. My legs gave way under me. And I’ll wait quietly for the day of trouble to come on the people invading us.

Even if the fig tree doesn’t blossom and there are no grapes on the vine. Even if the olive crop fails and the fields grow nothing. Even if the sheep pens are empty and there are no cattle in the stalls. I will still be glad in the LORD. I will still rejoice in the God who saves me.

Replying to @habakkuk

The Lord GOD is my strength. He makes my feet like a deer’s, and he lets me walk on the heights.