Habakkuk 1:4

"Therefore the law is slacked, and justice doth never go forth; for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore justice goeth forth perverted."

"The law is slacked ..." "The commandments of the Pentateuch, in other words, are not kept."[10] This reference to God's law indicates positively that the people who were supposed to keep that law were the ones addressed in these verses. "The courts fail to meet the problem posed by violence."[11] A certain indication of the decadence of a society and its approaching ruin is always a breakdown of the system for administering justice.

"The wicked doth compass about the righteous ..." Watts identified the persons meant by these words as "the guilty" and the "innocent,"[12] basing his view upon the emergence here of opponents "in a legal contest."

The purpose of Habakkuk 1:2-4 in Habukkuk's prophecy was that of citing the reason why God was sending punishment and doom upon them. That basis having been adequately stated, he announced the doom.