Habakkuk on performing work without God

Habakkuk 2:12-14 ESV

“Woe to him who builds a town with blood

and founds a city on iniquity!

Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts

that peoples labor merely for fire,

and nations weary themselves for nothing?

For the earth will be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

O. Palmer Robertson comments on verse 14

The certitude of the vanity, the pointlessness of people's oppressive ways that build seemingly stable and worthwhile communities rests on the unchanging word of God that Habakkuk now quotes. Their consumption in the fire of God's judgment is not guaranteed simply by the rise and fall of many previous civiliaztions. Instead, it is the oath of Yahweh himself that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh that quarantees the vanity and futility of all efforts to the contrary. Beauty in song, in dance, in architecture--all to the glory of God--shall fill the earth as the waters covers the sea.