Habakkuk 3:17

¹⁶Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? ¹⁷The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. ¹⁸How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

¹⁷They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.

¹⁵But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. ¹⁶You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field. ¹⁷Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. ¹⁸The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed.

³⁰You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. ³¹Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. ³²Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. ³³A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, ³⁴so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. ³⁵The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away. ³⁸You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. ⁴¹You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.

²“Judah mourns, and its gates languish. They sit in black on the ground. The cry of Jerusalem goes up. ³Their nobles send their little ones to the waters. They come to the cisterns, and find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads. ⁴Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads. ⁵Yes, the doe in the field also calves and forsakes her young, because there is no grass. ⁶The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation. ⁷Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, LORD; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you. ⁸You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night?

⁶“I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD. ⁷“I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One field was rained on, and the field where it didn’t rain withered. ⁸So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD. ⁹“I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards, and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD. ¹⁰“I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD.

¹⁶Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty. ¹⁷I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me,’ says the LORD.

¹⁰The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. ¹¹Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. ¹²The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered— the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. ¹³Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, ^[+] for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.