The answer received by Habakkuk can be applied not only to the events of his own days, but also to all those times when people will try to repeat the same thing. Then it was the Chaldeans, expanding the borders of their possessions by arms, but a little later the same thing happened to them that they had brought to others; and afterward, one after another, empires founded on violence and conquest changed and collapsed. So it has been until now, and so it will be until attempts to create and expand such empires cease.

But does not the evil rooted in the heart of the "peaceful" ordinary person continue in the deeds of conquerors? How different is the desire to conquer one more country from, say, the desire to grab one more room from a neighbor? Arguments of the sort "we are little people, this is not about us" should not calm us. For sin remains sin, however much we may want to divide it into "big" and "not so big."

And now, amid the triumph of lawlessness, when the law loses its force, the Lord reveals new depths of His Revelation. The words "the righteous shall live by his faith," proclaiming the primacy of faith over law, open to humanity the possibility of qualitatively new steps on the spiritual path. If we compare how many times the word "faith" is mentioned in the Old and New Testaments, we will see that the New speaks of faith much more. But the two Testaments are interconnected, and it is important to understand that the gospel proclamation did not sound in a vacuum: it was prepared even in Old Testament times.

Among the denunciations of lawlessness, a prophecy of retribution unexpectedly sounds "for the destruction of frightened animals." When after the flood the Lord gave the animal world to human beings for food (Gen 9:2-4), He proclaimed that every living thing should fear the human being placed over nature. But it was not enough for the crown of creation to inspire fear; he began to destroy all living things in quantities immeasurably beyond what was necessary to sustain his life. In Habakkuk's time, not everyone could easily have understood the meaning of this prophecy. For us, however, contemporaries of the ecological crisis and witnesses to the destruction of whole species, this prophecy sounds especially threatening.

Here is the answer to yesterday’s question, and once again it is unexpected. Exalting oneself over others already contains the seed of its own punishment, of its future fall. For God alone is great; He alone can be exalted. Every other human elevation is usurpation, a pride founded on nothing. And it will inevitably collapse. A city cannot stand upon blood; happiness cannot be bought with another person’s grief; arrogance brings no peace to the soul, while faith bears life within itself.