women within thee, and the gates of thy land shall be opened unto thine enemies; and the fire shall devour thy bars.

Draw thee water, for thou shalt be besieged; improve thy strongholds; go into the clay, and tread the glue, and make strong bricks.

But the fire shall devour thee, and the sword shall slay thee: it shall devour thee as the beetle, it shall overtake thee as the beetle, it shall attack thee as the locust; 16. Thou hast more merchants than there are stars in heaven: but now they shall spread themselves out like beetles, and fly away.

Thy lords are as grasshoppers, and thy captains as beetles, which lie down by the fence in the cold days: but when the sun riseth, they are lifted up, and it is not known where they abide.

Thy shepherds shall sleep, O king of Assyria; thy mighty men shall lie down; thy people shall be scattered upon the mountains, and none shall gather them together.

No man shall mourn for thy hurt, nor be grieved for thy plague: but all they that hear these things of thee shall clap their hands at thee. For upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed without ceasing?
Text of the unrevised Luther Bible 1545:
DeepL English Translation
[Processed by BackToLuther. German text published here.]
The prophet Habakkuk (Habakkuk) ^
Chapter 1
Invasion of the Chaldeans against Judah.

This is the burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? How long shall I cry unto thee for iniquity, and thou wilt not help?

Why hast thou made me to see toil and labour? Why showest thou me robbery and iniquity?
There is violence above justice.

Wherefore things go not at all but right, and no right thing can be gained: for the wicked overreaches the righteous, and therefore wrong judgments go.

Look ye among the heathen, and see, and marvel: for I will do a thing in your days, which ye shall not believe, when it shall be spoken of.

For, behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and quick people, which shall go as far as the land, to possess dwellings that are not theirs,

And shall be cruel and terrible, which shall command and compel as it pleaseth.

Their horses are swifter than the horses of the parade; and they are more biting than the wolves of the evening. Their horsemen go forth from afar in great multitudes, as if they flew, as the eagles hasten to the carrion.

They come all of them to do harm: whithersoever they go they tear through like an east wind, and shall gather captives together like the sand.

They shall mock at kings, and laugh at princes. All fortresses shall be a jest unto them: for they shall make rubble, and yet gain them.

Then shall they take courage again, and shall go on and sin: then must their victory be of their God.

But thou, O LORD my God, my Holy One, who art from everlasting, let us not die, but let them be to us, O LORD, only a punishment, and let them, O our refuge, only chasten us!

Thine eyes are pure, that thou canst not see evil; and thou canst not look upon the affliction.
Why then dost thou look upon the scornful, and holdest thy peace? for the wicked devoureth him that is more pious than he,

And let men go as fishes in the sea, as creeping things that have no master?

They draw it all with their hempen, and haul it with their net, and gather it with their yarn: they rejoice and are glad.

Therefore they sacrifice unto their nets, and burn incense unto their yarn; because by them their portion is made fat, and their meat is made whole.

Therefore they cast their net still, and will not cease to strangle men.
(Habakkuk)
Chapter 2
God’s promises and truth. Faith makes righteous.

Here I stand upon my guard, and tread upon my stronghold, and watch and see what shall be said unto me, and what I shall answer him that reproacheth me.

But the LORD answereth me, and saith, Write the vision, and paint it upon a tablet, that whosoever passeth by may read it:

The prophecy shall yet be fulfilled in his time; and it shall come to pass, and shall not be left without. But if it be consumed, wait for it: it shall surely come, and shall not fail.

Behold, he that is stiffnecked shall have no rest in his heart: for the righteous liveth by faith.
(Habakkuk)
Chapter 3
Of the fall of the Babylonians.

But wine deceiveth the proud man, that he cannot abide, which openeth his soul like hell, and is even as death, which cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto himself all nations, and gathereth unto himself all people.

But what is the matter? All these shall make a saying of him, and a fable, and a proverb, saying, Woe to him that multiplieth his substance with other men’s substance! How long shall it last? and he shall bring much mire upon himself.

O how suddenly they that bite thee shall awake, and they that push thee away shall awake!
And thou must come to them.

For thou hast spoiled many nations; and all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee again for the blood of men, and for the iniquity of the land, and of the city, and of all that dwell therein.

Woe unto him that maketh his house a calamity, that he may set his nest on high, that he may escape calamity!

But thy counsel shall be unto the reproach of thine house: for thou hast broken down too many nations, and hast sinned with all wilfulness.

For even the stones of the wall shall cry out, and the beams of the bars shall answer them.

Woe unto him that buildeth the city with blood, and that destroyeth the city with iniquity!

Is it not so, that it shall come to pass from the LORD of hosts? That which the nations have wrought for thee shall be burned with fire, and that which the people are weary of shall be lost.

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters that cover the sea.

Woe unto thee, that pour out thy cup unto thy neighbour, and mix thine anger therewith, and make him drunken, that thou mayest see his shame!

Thou shalt also be filled with shame for glory. Now therefore drink thou also, that thou mayest stagger: for the cup that is in the right hand of the LORD shall compass thee about, and thou shalt spit shamefully for thy glory.

For the iniquity that is committed in Lebanon shall overtake thee, and the beasts that are destroyed shall terrify thee, because of the blood of men, and because of the iniquity that is committed in the land, and in the city, and against all that dwell therein.

What then shall the image profit, which his master hath formed, and the false cast image, wherein his master trusted, that he made dumb idols?

Woe unto him that saith unto the wood, Awake! and unto the dumb stone, Arise! How shall it teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath in it.

But the LORD is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!
(Habakkuk)
Chapter 4
Prayer to God for the preservation of His people.
Ch. 3, v. 1. This is the prayer of the prophet Habakkuk for the innocent: 2. O Lord, I have heard thy rumour, and am astonished. O Lord, thou makest thy work alive in the midst of the years, and makest it known in the midst of the years. When tribulation cometh, thou rememberest mercy.

God came from the midday, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Sela. The heavens were full of His praise, and the earth was full of His glory.

His brightness was as light; shinings were from his hands; there was his power secretly.

Before him went pestilence, and plague went out whithersoever he went.

He stood and measured the land, and looked, and divided the nations: and the mountains of the world were broken in pieces, and the hills of the world stooped down, when he walked in the world.

I saw the tents of the Moors in trouble, and the tents of the Midianites in distress.

Were not thou wroth, O LORD, in the flood, and thy wrath in the waters, and thy anger in the sea, when thou rodeest upon thy horses, and thy chariots prevailed?

Thou hast drawn forth the bow, as thou swarest unto the tribes, Shelah, and hast divided the
rivers into the land.

The mountains saw thee, and they were afraid: the river went down, the deep was heard, the high places lifted up their hands.

The sun and the moon stood still. Thine arrows passed with shining, and thy spears with glances of lightning.

Thou hast trodden down the land in wrath, and thou hast crushed the heathen in fury.

Thou wentest forth to help thy people, to help thine anointed. Thou didst bruise the head of the house of the wicked; Thou didst uncover the foundation unto the neck. Sela.

Thou wouldest curse the sceptre of the head, and the spots thereof, which come as the weather to scatter me, and rejoice as they devour the wretched in hiding.

your horses walk in the sea, in the mud of great water.

When I hear these things, my belly is troubled, my lips tremble with the cry; pus cometh into my bones; I am troubled with myself. O that I might rest in the time of trouble, When we go up to the people that dispute with us!

For the fig tree shall not flourish, neither shall there be any increase in