King James Bible
"The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me."
King Nebuchadnezzar accuses his wise men of stalling for time, seeing through their request to hear the dream first. His paranoid suspicion reflects both his absolute power and deep insecurity, as he tests whether his advisors possess genuine supernatural insight or merely clever deception. The king reveals that either the dream has escaped his memory or he deliberately withholds it as a test. This phrase intensifies the impossible nature of his demand—to both reveal and interpret an undisclosed dream—establishing the crisis that only Daniel's God-given wisdom can resolve.