Habakkuk’s Prayer
Chapter 3
Canticle
1 What follows is a prayer of the prophet Habakkuk, accompanied by a plaintive tune.
2 O Lord, I have heard of your renown;
your work, O Lord, fills me with awe.
Make it live once again in our own time;
in the course of the years make it known,
and in your wrath remember to have compassion on us.
3 God comes from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His radiance covers the heavens,
and with his glory the earth is filled.
4 His splendor is like that of the sunrise;
rays shine forth from his hand
where his power lies hidden.
5 Pestilence goes before him,
and plague follows close behind.
6 When he stands up, the earth trembles;
at his glance the nations panic.
The eternal mountains are shattered;
along his ancient pathways,
the age-old hills bow down.
7 The tents of the Ethiopians are in distress;
the dwellings of the land of Midian are trembling.
8 Are you angry with the rivers, O Lord?
Or is your wrath directed against the streams,
or your rage against the sea,
that your horses are mounted
and you drive your chariots to victory?
9 You uncover your bow
and fill your quiver with arrows;
into rivers you split the earth.
10 At the sight of you the mountains tremble;
a torrent of water rushes by
and the ocean thunders aloud.
11 At the glint of your flying arrows
and the gleam of your flashing spear,
the sun forgets to rise
and the moon remains motionless in the heavens.
12 In fury you stride across the earth;
in anger you trample the nations.
13 You go forth to deliver your people,
to save your anointed one.
You shatter the house of the wicked,
laying bare its foundations to the bedrock.
14 You pierced with your arrows
the leader of those warriors
who stormed toward us like a whirlwind,
ready to devour the wretched who were in hiding.
15 You trampled the sea with your horses,
churning the mighty abyss.
16 I hear, and my body trembles;
my lips quiver at the sound.
Decay afflicts my bones,
and my legs tremble beneath me.
I wait calmly for the day of disaster
that will dawn on the people who attack us.
17 Even though the fig tree does not blossom
and there is no fruit on the vines,
even though the olive crop will fail
and the orchards will yield no food,
even though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
18 I will continue to rejoice in the Lord,
and exult in the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord God is my strength;
he makes my feet as swift as those of a deer
and enables me to tread on the heights.