2  O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not hear?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?

3  Why do you make me see iniquity,

and why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

4  So the law is paralyzed,

and justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

so justice goes forth perverted.

5  ^c“Look among the nations, and see;

wonder and be astounded.

For ^dI am doing a work in your days

that you would not believe if told.

6  For behold, I am raising up the ^eChaldeans,

that bitter and hasty nation,

who march through the breadth of the earth,

to seize dwellings not their own.

7  They are dreaded and fearsome;

their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.

8  Their ^fhorses are swifter than leopards,

more fierce than the evening wolves;

their horsemen press proudly on.

Their horsemen come from afar;

they fly like an ^geagle swift to devour.

9  They all come for violence,

all their faces forward.

They gather captives like sand.

10  At kings they scoff,

and at rulers they laugh.

They laugh at every fortress,

for they pile up earth and take it.

11  Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,

guilty men, whose own might is their god!”

12  Are you not ^hfrom everlasting,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

We shall not die.

O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,

and you, O ⁱRock, have established them for reproof.

13  You who are of purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

^jwhy do you idly look at traitors

and remain silent when the wicked swallows up

the man more righteous than he?

14  You make mankind like the fish of the sea,

like crawling things that have no ruler.

15  ^kHe¹ brings all of them up with a hook;

he drags them out with his net;

he gathers them in his dragnet;

so he rejoices and is glad.

16  Therefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his dragnet;

for by them he lives in luxury,²

and his food is rich.

17  Is he then to keep on emptying his net

and mercilessly killing nations forever?

1  I will take my stand at my ^lwatchpost

and station myself on the tower,

and look out to see what he will say to me,

and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

^m“Write the vision;

make it plain on tablets,

so he may run who reads it.

3  For still ⁿthe vision awaits its ^oappointed time;

it hastens to the end—it will not lie.

^pIf it seems slow, wait for it;

^qit will surely come; it will not delay.

4  “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,

but ^rthe righteous shall live by his faith.³

5  “Moreover, ^swine⁴ is a traitor,

an arrogant man who is never at rest.⁵

His greed is as wide as ^tSheol;

like death he has never enough.

He gathers for himself all nations

and collects as his own all peoples.”