11 The word about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
2 The Lord is a God who takes care of his honour and gives punishment for wrong; the Lord gives punishment and is angry; the Lord sends punishment on those who are against him, being angry with his haters. 3 The Lord is slow to get angry and great in power, and will not let the sinner go without punishment: the way of the Lord is in the wind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He says sharp words to the sea and makes it dry, drying up all the rivers: Bashan is feeble, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon is without strength. 5 The mountains are shaking because of him, and the hills flowing away; the earth is falling to bits before him, the world and all who are in it. 6 Who may keep his place before his wrath? and who may undergo the heat of his passion? his wrath is let loose like fire and the rocks are broken open by him. 7 The Lord is good, a strong place in the day of trouble; and he has knowledge of those who take him for their safe cover. 8 But like water overflowing he will take them away; he will put an end to those who come up against him, driving his haters into the dark.
9 What are you designing against the Lord? he will put an end to it: his haters will not come up again a second time. 10 For though they are like twisted thorns, and are overcome as with drink, they will come to destruction like stems of grass fully dry. 11 One has gone out from you who is designing evil against the Lord, whose purposes are of no value. 12 This is what the Lord has said: The days of my cause against you are ended; they are cut off and past. Though I have sent trouble on you, you will no longer be troubled. 13 And now I will let his yoke be broken off you, and your chains be parted. 14 The Lord has given an order about you, that no more of your name are to be planted: from the house of your gods I will have the pictured and metal images cut off; I will make your last resting-place a place of shame; for you are completely evil.
21 See on the mountains the feet of him who comes with good news, giving word of peace! Keep your feasts, O Judah, give effect to your oaths: for the good-for-nothing man will never again go through you; he is completely cut off. 2 A crusher has come up before your face: keep a good look-out, let the way be watched, make yourself strong, let your power be greatly increased. 3 For the Lord will make good the vine of Jacob, as well as the vine of Israel: for the wasters have made them waste and sent destruction on the branches of their vine. 4 The body-covers of his fighting men have been made red, the men of war are clothed in bright red: the war-carriages are like flames of fire in the day when he gets ready, the horses are shaking. 5 The war-carriages are rushing through the streets, pushing against one another in the wide ways, looking like burning lights, running like thunder-flames. 6 He takes the record of his great men: they go falling on their way; they go quickly to the wall, the cover is made ready. 7 The river doorways are forced open, and the king's house is flowing away. 8 And the queen is uncovered, she is taken away and her servant-girls are weeping like the sound of doves, hammering on their breasts. 9 But Nineveh is like a pool of water whose waters are flowing away; Keep your place, they say; but no one is turning back. 10 Take silver, take gold; for there is no end to the store; take for yourselves a weight of things to be desired.
11 Everything has been taken from her, all is gone, she has nothing more: the heart is turned to water, the knees are shaking, all are twisted in pain, and colour has gone from all faces. 12 Where is the lions' hole, the place where the young lions got their food, where the lion and the she-lion were walking with their young, without cause for fear?
13 Food enough for his young and for his she-lions was pulled down by the lion; his hole was full of flesh and his resting-place stored with meat. 14 See, I am against you, says the Lord of armies, and I will have your war-carriages burned in the smoke, and your young lions will be food for the sword: you will no longer get your food by force on the earth, and the voice of your she-lions will be stopped for ever.
31 A curse is on the town of blood; it is full of deceit and violent acts; and there is no end to the taking of life. 2 The noise of the whip, and the noise of thundering wheels; horses rushing and war-carriages jumping, 3 Horsemen driving forward, and the shining sword and the bright spear: and a great number of wounded, and masses of dead bodies; they are falling over the bodies of the dead: 4 Because of all the false ways of the loose woman, expert in attraction and wise in secret arts, who takes nations in the net of her false ways, and families through her secret arts. 5 See, I am against you, says the Lord of armies, and I will have your skirts pulled over your face, and let the nations see you unclothed, and the kingdoms your shame. 6 I will make you completely disgusting and full of shame, and will put you up to be looked at by all. 7 And it will come about that all who see you will go in flight from you and say, Nineveh is made waste: who will be weeping for her? where am I to get comforters for her?
8 Are you better than No-amon, seated on the Nile streams, with waters all round her; whose wall was the sea and her earthwork the waters? 9 Ethiopia was her strength and Egyptians without number; Put and Lubim were her helpers. 10 But even she has been taken away, she has gone away as a prisoner: even her young children are smashed to bits at the top of all the streets: the fate of her honoured men is put to the decision of chance, and all her great men are put in chains. 11 And you will be overcome with wine, you will become feeble; you will be looking for a safe place from those who are fighting against you. 12 All your walled places will be like fig-trees and your people like the first figs, falling at a shake into the mouth which is open for them. 13 See, the people who are in you are women; the doorways of your land are wide open to your attackers: the locks of your doors have been burned away in the fire. 14 Get water for the time when you are shut in, make strong your towns: go into the potter's earth, stamping it down with your feet, make strong the brickworks. 15 There the fire will make you waste; you will be cut off by the sword: make yourself as great in number as the worms, as great in number as the locusts. 16 Let your traders be increased more than the stars of heaven: 17 Your crowned ones are like the locusts, and your scribes like the clouds of insects which take cover in the walls on a cold day, but when the sun comes up they go in flight, and are seen no longer in their place. 18 Sorrow! how are the keepers of your flock sleeping, O king of Assyria! your strong men are at rest; your people are wandering on the mountains, and there is no one to get them together. 19 Your pain may not be made better; you are wounded to death: all those hearing the news about you will be waving their hands in joy over you: for who has not undergone the weight of your evil-doing again and again?
11 The word which Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2 How long, O Lord, will your ears be shut to my voice? I make an outcry to you about violent behaviour, but you do not send salvation. 3 Why do you make me see evil-doing, and why are my eyes fixed on wrong? for wasting and violent acts are before me: and there is fighting and bitter argument. 4 For this reason the law is feeble and decisions are not effected: for the upright man is circled round by evil-doers; because of which right is twisted.
5 See among the nations, and take note, and be full of wonder: for in your days I am doing a work in which you will have no belief, even if news of it is given to you. 6 For see, I am sending the Chaldaeans, that bitter and quick-moving nation; who go through the wide spaces of the earth to get for themselves living-places which are not theirs. 7 They are greatly to be feared: their right comes from themselves. 8 And their horses are quicker than leopards and their horsemen more cruel than evening wolves; they come from far away, like an eagle in flight rushing on its food. 9 They are coming all of them with force; the direction of their faces is forward, the number of their prisoners is like the sands of the sea. 10 He makes little of kings, rulers are a sport to him; all the strong places are to be laughed at; for he makes earthworks and takes them. 11 Then his purpose will be changed, over-stepping the limit; he will make his strength his god.
12 Are you not eternal, O Lord my God, my Holy One? for you there is no death. O Lord, he has been ordered by you for our punishment; and by you, O Rock, he has been marked out to put us right. 13 Before your holy eyes sin may not be seen, and you are unable to put up with wrong; why, then, are your eyes on the false? why do you say nothing when the evil-doer puts an end to one who is more upright than himself? 14 He has made men like the fishes of the sea, like the worms which have no ruler over them. 15 He takes them all up with his hook, he takes them in his net, getting them together in his fishing-net: for which cause he is glad and full of joy. 16 For this reason he makes an offering to his net, burning perfume to his fishing-net; because by them he gets much food and his meat is fat. 17 For this cause his net is ever open, and there is no end to his destruction of the nations.
21 I will take my position and be on watch, placing myself on my tower, looking out to see what he will say to me, and what answer he will give to my protest. 2 And the Lord gave me an answer, and said, Put the vision in writing and make it clear on stones, so that the reader may go quickly. 3 For the vision is still for the fixed time, and it is moving quickly to the end, and it will not be false: even if it is slow in coming, go on waiting for it; because it will certainly come, it will not be kept back. 4 As for the man of pride, my soul has no pleasure in him; but the upright man will have life through his good faith.
5 A curse on the cruel and false one! the man full of pride, who never has enough; who makes his desires wide as the underworld! he is like death; he is never full, but he makes all nations come to him, getting all peoples together to himself.
6 Will not all these take up a word of shame against him and a bitter saying against him, and say, A curse on him who goes on taking what is not his and is weighted down with the property of debtors! 7 Will not your creditors suddenly be moved against you, and your troublers get up from their sleep, and you will be to them like goods taken in war? 8 Because you have taken their goods from great nations, all the rest of the peoples will take your goods from you; because of men's blood and violent acts against the land and the town and all who are living in it. 9 A curse on him who gets evil profits for his family, so that he may put his resting-place on high and be safe from the hand of the wrongdoer! 10 You have been a cause of shame to your house by cutting off a number of peoples, and sinning against your soul. 11 For the stone will give a cry out of the wall, and it will be answered by the board out of the woodwork. 12 A curse on him who is building a place with blood, and basing a town on evil-doing! 13 See, is it not the pleasure of the Lord of armies that the peoples are working for the fire and using themselves up for nothing? 14 For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the sea is covered by the waters.
15 A curse on him who gives his neighbour the wine of his wrath, making him overcome with strong drink from the cup of his passion, so that you may be a witness of their shame! 16 You are full of shame in place of glory: take your part in the drinking, and let your shame be uncovered: the cup of the Lord's right hand will come round to you and your glory will be covered with shame. 17 For the violent acts against Lebanon will come on you, and the destruction of the cattle will be a cause of fear to you, because of men's blood and the violent acts against the land and the town and all who are living in it. 18 What profit is the pictured image to its maker? and as for the metal image, the false teacher, why does its maker put his faith in it, making false gods without a voice? 19 A curse on him who says to the wood, Awake! to the unbreathing stone, Up! let it be a teacher! See, it is plated 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 be quiet before him.
31 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, put to Shigionoth. 2 O Lord, word of you has come to my ears; I have seen your work, O Lord; when the years come near make it clear; in wrath keep mercy in mind.
3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. The heavens were covered with his glory, and the earth was full of his praise. 4 He was shining like the light; he had rays coming out from his hand: there his power was kept secret. 5 Before him went disease, and flames went out at his feet. 6 From his high place he sent shaking on the earth; he saw and nations were suddenly moved: and the eternal mountains were broken, the unchanging hills were bent down; his ways are eternal. 7 The curtains of Cushan were troubled, and the tents of Midian were shaking. 8 Was your wrath burning against the rivers? were you angry with the sea, that you went on your horses, on your war-carriages of salvation? 9 Your bow was quite uncovered. Selah. By you the earth was cut through with rivers. 10 The mountains saw you and were moved with fear; the clouds were streaming with water: the voice of the deep was sounding; the sun did not come up, and the moon kept still in her place. 11 At the light of your arrows they went away, at the shining of your polished spear. 12 You went stepping through the land in wrath, crushing the nations in your passion. 13 You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of the one on whom your holy oil was put; wounding the head of the family of the evil-doer, uncovering the base even to the neck. Selah. 14 You have put your spears through his head, his horsemen were sent in flight like dry stems; they had joy in driving away the poor, in making a meal of them secretly. 15 The feet of your horses were on the sea, on the mass of great waters.
16 Hearing it, my inner parts were moved, and my lips were shaking at the sound; my bones became feeble, and my steps were uncertain under me: I gave sounds of grief in the day of trouble, when his forces came up against the people in bands. 17 For though the fig-tree has no flowers, and there is no fruit on the vine, and work on the olive comes to nothing, and the fields give no food; and the flock is cut off from its resting-place, and there is no herd in the cattle-house: 18 Still, I will be glad in the Lord, my joy will be in the God of my salvation. 19 The Lord God is my strength, and he makes my feet like roes' feet, guiding me on my high places. For the chief music-maker on corded instruments.
