Habakkuk 1:4
“Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Because evil goes unpunished, the law has gone limp and justice is perverted — the wicked surround the righteous and rulings come out crooked.
What Does Habakkuk 1:4 Mean?
Here Habakkuk diagnoses the rot. When wrongdoing meets no consequence, the law loses its force — it grows slack, like a rope gone limp. Justice never reaches its mark. The wicked hem in the righteous, and the courts that should protect the innocent instead bend the wrong way.
This is the prophet's deepest grievance: not merely that bad people do bad things, but that the very structures meant to restrain evil have failed. When right and wrong are reversed in public life, the faithful feel cornered. Yet Habakkuk's lament assumes a fixed standard — God's law — against which this crookedness can even be named as crooked. The ache for true justice is itself evidence that justice is real, anchored in the character of the God who will not leave it slack forever.
In the Original Language
torah (תוֹרָה), 'law' — God's instruction and teaching, the revealed standard that orders a people's life before Him.