Habakkuk 2

1I will stand at my watchpost and take my place on the rampart. I will look out to learn what he will say to me, and how I should answer about my complaint. 2Then the LORD answered me: Write down the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that whoever reads it can run. 3For the vision still waits for its appointed time; it hurries toward the end and will not prove false. Though it lingers, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not be late. 4Look at the proud one: his desires are not upright within him; but the righteous will live by their faithfulness. 5Moreover, wine betrays the arrogant man; he is never at rest. He opens his throat as wide as Sheol; like death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations for himself and collects all the peoples as his own. 6Will not all of them take up a mocking song against him, with scorn and riddles about him, and say: Woe to him who piles up what is not his own! How long will this go on? He weighs himself down with goods taken in pledge! 7Will not your creditors rise up suddenly, and those who make you tremble wake up? Then you will become their plunder. 8Since you have looted many nations, all the peoples who are left will loot you, because of the human blood you shed and the violence against the land, against the city and all who live in it.

9Woe to him who gets wicked profit for his house, to set his nest up high, to be safe from the grasp of disaster! 10Your schemes have brought shame on your house; by cutting off many peoples you have forfeited your own life. 11The very stones will cry out from the wall, and a beam from the woodwork will answer them.

12Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with wrongdoing! 13Has not the LORD of Armies decreed that the peoples toil only for the fire and the nations wear themselves out for nothing? 14For the earth will be as full of knowing the glory of the LORD as the sea is full of water.

15Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink, pouring out his fury until they are drunk, so that he can gaze at their nakedness! 16You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Drink, you too, and be exposed as uncircumcised! The cup in the right hand of the LORD will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. 17The violence you did to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and so will the slaughter that terrified its animals, because of the human blood you shed and the violence against the land, against the city and all who live in it.

18What use is an idol once its maker has carved it, or a metal image, a teacher of lies? Its maker trusts in what he himself has shaped when he fashions idols that cannot speak.

19Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, “Wake up!” or to a lifeless stone, “Get up!” Can it teach? It is covered with gold and silver, but there is no breath in it at all. 20But the LORD is in his holy temple; all the earth, be hushed before him.