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. [Acts 13:40, 41.]
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. [II Kings 24:2.]
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. [Deut. 32:4.]
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.