Confuse them, ¹  O Lord! Frustrate their plans! ²  For I see violence and conflict in the city.

Come, let’s go down and confuse ¹  their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.” ² 

Hurl lightning bolts and scatter them! Shoot your arrows and rout them! ¹ 

Oppressors treat my ¹  people cruelly; creditors rule over them. ²  My people’s leaders mislead them; they give you confusing directions. ³ 

“Who is this ¹  who darkens counsel ²  with words without knowledge?

I wish those agitators ¹  would go so far as to ²  castrate themselves! ³ 

The Egyptians will panic, ¹  and I will confuse their strategy. ²  They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead, from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians. ³ 

The Lord your God will give them over to you; he will throw them into a great panic ¹  until they are destroyed.

For if your brother or sister ¹  is distressed because of what you eat, ²  you are no longer walking in love. ³  Do not destroy by your food someone for whom Christ died.

But you will be able to counter the advice of Ahithophel if you go back to the city and say to Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, O king! Previously I was your father’s servant, and now I will be your servant.’

If you don’t inform me of the dream, there is only one thing that is going to happen to you. ¹  For you have agreed among yourselves to report to me something false and deceitful ²  until such time as things might change. So tell me the dream, and I will have confidence ³  that you can disclose its interpretation.”