It so happened that when our adversaries heard that we were aware of these matters, ¹  God frustrated their intentions. Then all of us returned to the wall, each to his own work.

They ¹  spend all their time planning how to bring him ²  down. ³  They love to use deceit; ⁴  they pronounce blessings with their mouths, but inwardly they utter curses. ⁵  (Selah)

O Lord, shelter me from the power ¹  of the wicked! Protect me from violent men, who plan to knock me over. ² 

Whatever you find to do with your hands, ¹  do it with all your might, because there is neither work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, ²  the place where you will eventually go. 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 

Who planned this for royal Tyre, ¹  whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the dignitaries ²  of the earth?

The Lord who commands armies planned it – to dishonor the pride that comes from all her beauty, ¹  to humiliate all the dignitaries of the earth.

Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the disaster I intend to bring on them, they will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. ¹  If they do, I will forgive their sins and the wicked things they have done.” ² 

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind, ¹  and you will devise an evil plan.

(He ¹  had not consented ²  to their plan and action.) He ³  was from the Judean town ⁴  of Arimathea, and was looking forward to ⁵  the kingdom of God. ⁶ 

He did this when he revealed ¹  to us the secret ²  of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth ³  in Christ, ⁴ 

When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, ¹  she quickly summoned ²  her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is planning to get revenge by killing you. ³ 

Give the signal to attack Babylon’s wall! ¹  Bring more guards! ²  Post them all around the city! ³  Put men in ambush! ⁴  For the Lord will do what he has planned. He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon. ⁵ 

In a time of prosperity for the most productive areas of the province he will come and accomplish what neither his fathers nor their fathers accomplished. He will distribute loot, spoils, and property to his followers, and he will devise plans against fortified cities, but not for long. ¹ 

I do not want you to be unaware, ¹  brothers and sisters, ²  that I often intended to come to you (and was prevented until now), so that I may have some fruit even among you, just as I already have among the rest of the Gentiles. ³ 

You replied to me that what I had said to you was good.

I thought this was a good idea, ¹  so I sent ²  twelve men from among you, one from each tribe.

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted;

He becomes the victim of his own destructive plans ¹  and the violence he intended for others falls on his own head. ² 

All who hate me whisper insults about me to one another; ¹  they plan ways to harm me.