He is telling us that the things we do for our own personal gain, (the misuse of power or position,) will be unprofitable, and end up as fuel for His fire. These things will be worthless, and serve no purpose in the final judgement. What a patient Lord we serve!
The Bible encourages each of us to be honest and just, fair in all our dealings. The psalms confirm this, and we can be encouraged as we read different passages of The Bible telling us the same things written by different people in different generations, from different walks of life.
If these people keep silent, the stones will cry out. There is another example of stones having ears and being able to speak in Joshua 4 where we read of the Israelites crossing the Jordan into the promised land. The stones were to be a witness to future generations.
Only God knows the hearts of men and how they are living their lives on earth. But we must remember that He does see, really see, what is happening on the earth. And much of what is happening on earth today is sadly a repeat of these Old Testament curses.
God promised that there would be wars and rumours of wars and many other problems, disasters and difficulties before His return to earth. We are living through those things today, just as the world has done since Jesus left His followers to fill the earth with knowledge of Him.
Eve, in the garden of Eden, thought she could decide for herself what was and was not good for her. She acted according to her own pride. Of course, she was influenced by the enemy, satan in the guise of the snake. Sadly, mankind has fallen into the same trap.
We think of death as the end of life on earth, a separation from the world and those we love. But the original meaning meant a separation from God. Adam and Eve had no idea what that meant until they ate the forbidden fruit and the Spirit of God left them.
Christians and Jews are still considered enemies to many people across the world! The answer to that problem is still the same as it was for Habakkuk. The righteous person will live by his faith. The alternative translation works well too. The righteous person will live by HIS faithfulness.
Jesus is the answer to any problem we might be facing. But often we must wait for Him to move, just as the Israelites had to wait centuries for Him to appear. And when He did, He was not at all what they had expected. Many of them rejected Him.
This verse begins The Lord replied…. So often we pray, say amen and move on. I ask myself how often I really wait for a reply from God. He could well be responding, but I am no longer listening because my life is full and my thoughts have moved on!
EN 
FR