Habakkuk 2:17

Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double.

Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image.

“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

Yahweh, your God, is among you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.

A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth. The work of a man’s hands shall be rewarded to him.

Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.

“Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp against her all around. Let none of it escape. Pay her back according to her work. According to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.

For the day of Yahweh is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head.

Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.

It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green.

You will destroy those who speak lies. Yahweh abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

Shall they escape by iniquity? In anger cast down the peoples, God.

that you may give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit is dug for the wicked.

The fear of Yahweh prolongs days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.

Don’t be too wicked, neither be foolish. Why should you die before your time?

The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in Yahweh’s land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

Yes, the cypress trees rejoice with you, with the cedars of Lebanon, saying, “Since you are humbled, no lumberjack has come up against us.”

In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble and fear because of the shaking of Yahweh of Armies’s hand, which he shakes over them.

Woe to you who destroy, but you weren’t destroyed, and who betray, but nobody betrayed you! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betrayal, you will be betrayed.

Your Lord Yahweh, your God who pleads the cause of his people, says, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more.

Yahweh says, “Concerning all my evil neighbors, who touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them.

Shout against her all around. She has submitted herself. Her bulwarks have fallen. Her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of Yahweh. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her.

“Flee out of the middle of Babylon! Everyone save his own life! Don’t be cut off in her iniquity; for it is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance. He will render to her a recompense.

‘Yahweh has produced our righteousness: come, and let’s declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.’

“The Lord Yahweh says to Tyre: ‘Won’t the islands shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made within you?

“Pharaoh will see them, and will be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword,” says the Lord Yahweh.

He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.”

Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings,

For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for Yahweh shall inherit the land.

Let his days be few. Let another take his office.

Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With a voice of singing announce this, tell it even to the end of the earth: say, “Yahweh has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon.

Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow, also against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail. Don’t spare her young men! Utterly destroy all her army!

For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for Yahweh is a God of retribution. He will surely repay.

The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have turned again to provoke me to anger. Behold, they put the branch to their nose.

By the abundance of your commerce, your insides were filled with violence, and you have sinned. Therefore I have cast you as profane out of God’s mountain. I have destroyed you, covering cherub, from the middle of the stones of fire.

so that they will take no wood out of the field, and not cut down any out of the forests; for they will make fires with the weapons. They will plunder those who plundered them, and rob those who robbed them,” says the Lord Yahweh.

You saw until a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.

I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity.”

“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it; and you will know that Yahweh of Armies has sent me to you.

Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope! Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.

“In that day there will be a spring opened to David’s house and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.

He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.

No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.

The sin of the young men was very great before Yahweh; for the men despised Yahweh’s offering.

They die in youth. Their life perishes among the unclean.

But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in you.

All mankind shall be afraid. They shall declare the work of God, and shall wisely ponder what he has done.

An evil speaker won’t be established in the earth. Evil will hunt the violent man to overthrow him.

In your loving kindness, cut off my enemies, and destroy all those who afflict my soul, For I am your servant.

Men will speak of the might of your awesome acts. I will declare your greatness.

Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes.

For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

A man’s stomach is filled with the fruit of his mouth. With the harvest of his lips he is satisfied.

Behold, for peace I had great anguish, but you have in love for my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will leave him. At his end, he will be a fool.

All the nations will serve him, his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings will make him their bondservant.

It was so, when they came into the middle of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah killed them, and cast them into the middle of the pit, he, and the men who were with him.

Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her. Spare no arrows; for she has sinned against Yahweh.

They take up bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea. They ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon.

At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles; and the cry is heard among the nations.

“As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so the slain of all the land will fall at Babylon.

“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because Edom has dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and has greatly offended, and taken revenge on them;”

“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because the Philistines have taken revenge, and have taken vengeance with contempt of soul to destroy with perpetual hostility;”

At the sound of the cry of your pilots, the pasture lands will shake.

The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. The cypress trees were not like its boughs. The pine trees were not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty.

I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.’

I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth.

“ ‘To whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth. You will lie in the middle of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword. “ ‘This is Pharaoh and all his multitude,’ says the Lord Yahweh.”

“Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her and the daughters of the famous nations, to the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit.

but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which don’t see, or hear, or know; and you have not glorified the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways.

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever;

Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is Yahweh your God? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.

Yahweh, within her, is righteous. He will do no wrong. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He doesn’t fail, but the unjust know no shame.

Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars.

Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”

Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you,

The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who repays you, as you have done to us.

A man who is tormented by life blood will be a fugitive until death; no one will support him.

that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!”

Listen to those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance of his temple.

“I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight,” says Yahweh.

Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?

Yahweh has taken away your judgments. He has thrown out your enemy. The King of Israel, Yahweh, is among you. You will not be afraid of evil any more.

For Yahweh of Armies says: ‘For honor he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.

For, behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they will be a plunder to those who served them; and you will know that Yahweh of Armies has sent me.

It will happen in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.

By the fruit of his lips, a man enjoys good things, but the unfaithful crave violence.