Eternal One: I will subject the Egyptians to oppressive forces
        and heartless leadership of a dictator-king.
    I will make them turn against each other,
        Egyptian against Egyptian, a civil war,
    Right down to the houses within a neighborhood—
        city against city, district against district.^[a]
3     They’ll lose all courage and I’ll frustrate their plans.
        They’ll seek the advice of long dead ancestors and empty idols,
        mediums and fortune-tellers.
    But it is I who determine their fate.

^5-7 Egypt’s waterways and everything that lives in them will dry up and die—
    saltwater and fresh, standing pools and running streams will all evaporate.
All the reeds and rushes along the river’s edge will wither and die and rot away.
All the crops sown by the Nile will turn brittle and dry,
    to be blown away—completely away—by sultry winds.