Habakuk 2:13

2:13 Be sure of this! The Lord who commands armies has decreed:

The nations’ efforts will go up in smoke;

their exhausting work will be for nothing. ¹ 

Habakuk 2:19

2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ²  –

he who says ³  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’

Can it give reliable guidance? ⁴ 

It is overlaid with gold and silver;

it has no life’s breath inside it.

[2:13]  ¹ tn Heb “Is it not, look, from the Lord of hosts that the nations work hard for fire, and the peoples are exhausted for nothing?”

[2:19]  ² tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:19]  ³ tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.

[2:19]  ⁴ tn Though the Hebrew text has no formal interrogative marker here, the context indicates that the statement should be taken as a rhetorical question anticipating the answer, “Of course not!” (so also NIV, NRSV).