13 The mournful, inspired prediction (a burden to be lifted up) concerning Babylon which Isaiah son of Amoz saw [with prophetic insight]:

² Raise up a signal banner upon the high and bare mountain, summon them [the Medes and Persians] with loud voice and beckoning hand that they may enter the gates of the [Babylonian] nobles.

³ I Myself [says the Lord] have commanded My designated ones and have summoned My mighty men to execute My anger, even My proudly exulting ones [the Medes and Persians]—those who are made to triumph for My honor.

⁴ Hark, the uproar of a multitude in the mountains, like that of a great people! The noise of the tumult of the kingdoms of the nations gathering together! The Lord of hosts is mustering the host for the battle.

⁵ They come from a distant country, from the uttermost part of the heavens [the far east]—even the Lord and the weapons of His indignation—to seize and destroy the whole land.^(A)

⁶ Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand; as destruction from the Almighty and Sufficient One [Shaddai] will it come!^(B)

⁷ Therefore will ^[a]all hands be feeble, and every man’s heart will melt.

⁸ And they [of Babylon] shall be dismayed and terrified, pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman in childbirth. They will gaze stupefied and aghast at one another, their faces will be aflame [from the effects of the unprecedented warfare].

⁹ Behold, the day of the Lord is coming!—fierce, with wrath and raging anger—to make the land and the [whole] earth a desolation and to destroy out of it its sinners.^(C)

¹⁰ For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened at its rising and the moon will not shed its light.

¹¹ And I, the Lord, will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their guilt and iniquity; I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible and the boasting of the violent and ruthless.

¹² I will make a man more rare than fine gold, and mankind scarcer than the pure gold of Ophir.

¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the ^[b]earth shall be shaken out of its place at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of His fierce anger.

¹⁴ And like the chased roe or gazelle, and like sheep that no man gathers, each [foreign resident] will turn to his own people, and each will flee to his own land.

¹⁵ Everyone who is found will be thrust through, and everyone who is connected with the slain and is caught will fall by the sword.

¹⁶ Their infants also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.

¹⁷ Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold [and thus cannot be bribed].

¹⁸ Their bows will cut down the young men [of Babylon]; and they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb, their eyes will not spare children.

¹⁹ And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.

²⁰ [Babylon] shall never be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arab pitch his tent there, nor shall the shepherds make their sheepfolds there.

²¹ But wild beasts of the desert will lie down there, and the people’s houses will be full of dolefully howling creatures; and ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats [like demons] will dance there.

²² And ^[c]wolves and howling creatures will cry and answer in the deserted castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. And [Babylon’s] time has nearly come, and her days will not be prolonged.

14 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob [the captive Jews in Babylon] and will again choose Israel and set them in their own land; and foreigners [who are proselytes] will join them and will cleave to the house of Jacob (Israel).^(D)

² And the peoples [of Babylonia] shall ^[d]take them and bring them to their own country [of Judea] and help restore them. And the house of Israel will possess [the foreigners who prefer to stay with] them in the land of the Lord as male and female servants; and they will take captive [not by physical but by moral might] those whose captives they have been, and they will rule over their [former] oppressors.^(E)

³ When the Lord has given you rest from your sorrow and pain and from your trouble and unrest and from the hard service with which you were made to serve,

⁴ You shall take up this [taunting] parable against the king of Babylon and say, How the oppressor has stilled [the restless insolence]! The golden and exacting city has ceased!

⁵ The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the [tyrant] rulers,

⁶ Who smote the peoples in anger with incessant blows and trod down the nations in wrath with unrelenting persecution—[until] he who smote is persecuted and no one hinders any more.

⁷ The whole earth is at rest and is quiet; they break forth into singing.

⁸ Yes, the fir trees and cypresses rejoice at you [O kings of Babylon], even the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.

⁹ Sheol (Hades, the place of the dead) below is stirred up to meet you at your coming [O tyrant Babylonian rulers]; it stirs up the shades of the dead to greet you—even all the chief ones of the earth; it raises from their thrones [in astonishment at your humbled condition] all the kings of the nations.

¹⁰ All of them will [tauntingly] say to you, Have you also become weak as we are? Have you become like us?

¹¹ Your pomp and magnificence are brought down to Sheol (the underworld), along with the sound of your harps; the maggots [which prey upon dead bodies] are spread out under you and worms cover you [O Babylonian rulers].

¹² How have you fallen from heaven, O ^[e]light-bringer and daystar, son of the morning! How you have been cut down to the ground, you who weakened and laid low the nations [O blasphemous, satanic king of Babylon!]

¹³ And you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit upon the mount of assembly in the uttermost north.

¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.

¹⁵ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol (Hades), to the innermost recesses of the pit (the region of the dead).

¹⁶ Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you, saying, Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms?—

¹⁷ Who made the world like a wilderness and overthrew its cities, who would not permit his prisoners to return home?

¹⁸ All the kings of the nations, all of them lie sleeping in glorious array, each one in his own sepulcher.

¹⁹ But you are cast away from your tomb like a loathed growth or premature birth or an abominable branch [of the family] and like the raiment of the slain; and you are clothed with the slain, those thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit [into which carcasses are thrown], like a dead body trodden underfoot.

²⁰ You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land and have slain your people. May the descendants of evildoers nevermore be named!

²¹ Prepare a slaughtering place for his sons because of the guilt and iniquity of their fathers, so that they may not rise, possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities.

²² And I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son, says the Lord.

²³ I will also make it a possession of the hedgehog and porcupine, and of ^[f]marshes and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says the Lord of hosts.

47 Come down, and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground [in abject humiliation]; there is no throne for you, O Daughter of the Chaldeans, for you shall no longer be called dainty and delicate.

² Take the millstones [like the poorest female slave of the household does] and grind meal; take off your veil and uncover your hair. Remove your skirt, bare your leg, wade through the rivers [at the command of your captors].

³ Your nakedness shall be exposed, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no man [none I encounter will be able to resist Me],

⁴ [Says] our Redeemer—the Lord of hosts is His name—the Holy One of Israel.

⁵ Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called the lady and mistress of kingdoms.

⁶ I was angry with My people, I profaned My inheritance [Judah]; and I gave them into your hand [Babylon]. You showed them no mercy; upon the old people you made your yoke very heavy.

⁷ And you said, I shall be the mistress forever! So you did not lay these things to heart, nor did you [seriously] remember the certain, ultimate end of such conduct.

⁸ Therefore now, hear this, you who love pleasures and are given over to them, you who dwell safely and sit securely, who say in your mind, I am [the mistress] and there is no one else besides me. I shall not sit as a widow, nor shall I know the loss of children.

⁹ But these two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of the multitude of [your claims to] power given you by the assistance of evil spirits, in spite of the great abundance of your enchantments.^(A)

¹⁰ For you [Babylon] have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, No one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart and mind, I am, and there is no one besides me.

¹¹ Therefore shall evil come upon you; you shall not know the dawning of it or how to charm it away. And a disaster and evil shall fall upon you that you shall not be able to atone for [with all your offerings to your gods]; and desolation shall come upon you suddenly, about which you shall know nothing or how to avert it.

¹² Persist, then, with your enchantments and the multitude of your sorceries [Babylon], in which you have labored from your youth; and see if perhaps you will be able to profit, if you will prevail and strike terror!

¹³ You are wearied with your many counsels and plans. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and make known to you and save you from the things that shall come upon you [Babylon].

¹⁴ Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them. They cannot even deliver themselves from the power of the flame [much less deliver the nation]. There is no coal for warming or fire before which to sit!

¹⁵ Such to you shall they [the astrologers and their kind] be, those with whom you have labored and such their fate, those who have done business with you from your youth; they will wander, every one to his own quarter and in his own direction. No one will save you.

1 The burden or oracle (the thing to be lifted up) which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

² O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and You will not hear? Or cry out to You of violence and You will not save?

³ Why do You show me iniquity and wrong, and Yourself look upon or cause me to see perverseness and trouble? For destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention arises.

⁴ Therefore the law is slackened and justice and a righteous sentence never go forth, for the [hostility of the] wicked surrounds the [uncompromisingly] righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.

⁵ Look around [you, Habakkuk, replied the Lord] among the nations and see! And be astonished! Astounded! For I am putting into effect a work in your days [such] that you would not believe it if it were told you.^(A)

⁶ For behold, I am rousing up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation who march through the breadth of the earth to take possession of dwelling places that do not belong to them.^(B)

⁷ [The Chaldeans] are terrible and dreadful; their justice and dignity proceed [only] from themselves.

⁸ Their horses also are swifter than leopards and are fiercer than the evening wolves, and their horsemen spread themselves and press on proudly; yes, their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle that hastens to devour.

⁹ They all come for violence; their faces turn eagerly forward, and they gather prisoners together like sand.

¹⁰ They scoff at kings, and rulers are a derision to them; they ridicule every stronghold, for they heap up dust [for earth mounds] and take it.

¹¹ Then they sweep by like a wind and pass on, and they load themselves with guilt, [as do all men] whose own power is their god.

¹² Are not You from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed [the Chaldean] to execute [Your] judgment, and You, O Rock, have established him for chastisement and correction.^(C)

¹³ You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and can not look [inactively] upon injustice. Why then do You look upon the plunderer? Why are you silent when the wicked one destroys him who is more righteous than [the Chaldean oppressor] is?

¹⁴ Why do You make men like the fish of the sea, like reptiles and creeping things that have no ruler [and are defenseless against their foes]?

¹⁵ [The Chaldean] brings all of them up with his hook; he catches and drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is in high spirits.

¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices [offerings] to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because from them he lives luxuriously and his food is plentiful and rich.

¹⁷ Shall he therefore continue to empty his net and mercilessly go on slaying the nations forever?

2 [Oh, I know, I have been rash to talk out plainly this way to God!] I will [in my thinking] stand upon my post of observation and station myself on the tower or fortress, and will watch to see what He will say within me and what answer I will make [as His mouthpiece] to the perplexities of my complaint against Him.

² And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may [be able to] read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by.

³ For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end [fulfillment]; it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait [earnestly] for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day.^(A)

⁴ Look at the proud; his soul is not straight or right within him, but the [rigidly] just and the [uncompromisingly] righteous man shall ^[a]live by his faith and in his faithfulness.^(B)

⁵ Moreover, wine and ^[b]wealth are treacherous; the proud man [the Chaldean invader] is restless and cannot stay at home. His appetite is large like that of Sheol and [his greed] is like death and cannot be satisfied; he gathers to himself all nations and collects all people as if he owned them.

⁶ Shall not all these [victims of his greed] take up a taunt against him and in scoffing derision of him say, Woe to him who piles up that which is not his! [How long will he possess it?] And [woe to him] who loads himself with promissory notes for usury!

⁷ Shall [your debtors] not rise up suddenly who shall bite you, exacting usury of you, and those awake who will vex you [toss you to and fro and make you tremble violently]? Then you will be booty for them.

⁸ Because you [king of Babylon] have plundered many nations, all who are left of the people shall plunder you—because of men’s blood and for the violence done to the earth, to the city and all the people who live in each city.

⁹ Woe to him who obtains wicked gain for his house, [who thinks by so doing] to set his nest on high that he may be preserved from calamity and delivered from the power of evil!

¹⁰ You have devised shame to your house by cutting off and putting an end to many peoples, and you have sinned against and forfeited your own life.

¹¹ For the stone shall cry out of the wall [built in sin, to accuse you], and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it [agreeing with its charge against you].

¹² Woe to him who builds a town with blood and establishes a city by iniquity!

¹³ Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?

¹⁴ But [the time is coming when] the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.^(C)

¹⁵ Woe to him who gives his neighbors drink, who pours out your bottle to them and adds to it your poisonous and blighting wrath and also makes them drunk, that you may look on their stripped condition and pour out foul shame [on their glory]!

¹⁶ You [yourself] will be filled with shame and contempt instead of glory. Drink also and be like an uncircumcised [heathen]! The cup [of wrath] in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you [O destroyer], and foul shame shall be upon your own glory!^(D)

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will cover and overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals [which the violence frightened away] will terrify you on account of men’s blood and the violence done to the land, to the city and all its inhabitants.

¹⁸ What profit is the graven image when its maker has formed it? It is only a molten image and a teacher of lies. For the maker trusts in his own creations [as his gods] when he makes dumb idols.

¹⁹ Woe to him who says to the wooden image, Awake! and to the dumb stone, Arise, teach! [Yet, it cannot, for] behold, it is laid over with gold and silver and there is no breath at all inside it!

²⁰ But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth hush and keep silence before Him.^(E)