When the children of Israel are in bondage to Babylon, the prophet Habakkuk, like Job, cries out to the Lord against His seeming injustice:
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!1:2
The Lord replies: His instrument of punishment is at hand. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land. . . .1:6
They shall come all for violence. . . . And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them.1:9–10
Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time . . . though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come.2:2–3
The transgressor shall be punished; the just man shall live by his faith and shall have his reward in the end: The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.2:20