28 If you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments which I command you this day, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

² And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God.

³ Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field.

⁴ Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock.

⁵ Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.

⁶ Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.

⁷ The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

⁸ The Lord shall command the blessing upon you in your storehouse and in all that you undertake. And He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

⁹ The Lord will establish you as a people holy to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways.

¹⁰ And all people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name [and in the presence of] the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.

¹¹ And the Lord shall make you have a surplus of prosperity, through the fruit of your body, of your livestock, and of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

¹² The Lord shall open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

¹³ And the Lord shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day and are watchful to do them.

¹⁴ And you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

2 In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams by which his spirit was troubled and agitated and his sleep went from him.

² Then the king commanded to call the magicians, the enchanters or soothsayers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans [diviners], to tell the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

³ And the king said to them, I had a dream and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.

⁴ Then said the Chaldeans [diviners] to the king in Aramaic [the Syrian language], O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.

⁵ The king answered the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me! And the decree goes forth from me and I say it with all emphasis: if you do not make known to me the dream with its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made a dunghill!

⁶ But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So show me the dream and the interpretation of it.

⁷ They answered again, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation of it.

⁸ The king answered, I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see the thing is gone from me and because you see that my word [against you] is sure:

⁹ If you will not make known to me the dream, there is but one sentence for you; for you have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me [hoping to delay your execution] until the time is changed. Therefore tell me the dream, and I will know that you can tell me the interpretation of it.

¹⁰ The Chaldeans [diviners] answered before the king and said, There is not a man on earth who can show the king this matter, for no king, lord, or ruler has [ever] asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean.

¹¹ A rare and weighty thing indeed the king requires! None except the gods can reveal it to the king, and their dwelling is not with [human] flesh.

¹² For this cause the king was angry and very furious and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed.

11 Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, ^[a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

² For by [faith—^[b]trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report.

³ By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible.

⁴ [Prompted, actuated] by faith Abel brought God a better and more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, because of which it was testified of him that he was righteous [that he was upright and in right standing with God], and God bore witness by accepting and acknowledging his gifts. And though he died, yet [through the incident] he is still speaking.^(A)

⁵ Because of faith Enoch was caught up and transferred to heaven, so that he did not have a glimpse of death; and he was not found, because God had translated him. For even before he was taken to heaven, he received testimony [still on record] that he had pleased and been satisfactory to God.^(B)

⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].

⁷ [Prompted] by faith Noah, being forewarned by God concerning events of which as yet there was no visible sign, took heed and diligently and reverently constructed and prepared an ark for the deliverance of his own family. By this [his faith which relied on God] he passed judgment and sentence on the world’s unbelief and became an heir and possessor of righteousness (^[c]that relation of being right into which God puts the person who has faith).^(C)

⁸ [Urged on] by faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went forth to a place which he was destined to receive as an inheritance; and he went, although he did not know or trouble his mind about where he was to go.

⁹ [Prompted] by faith he dwelt as a temporary resident in the land which was designated in the promise [of God, though he was like a stranger] in a strange country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs with him of the same promise.^(D)

¹⁰ For he was [waiting expectantly and confidently] looking forward to the city which has fixed and firm foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God.

¹¹ Because of faith also Sarah herself received physical power to conceive a child, even when she was long past the age for it, because she considered [God] Who had given her the promise to be reliable and trustworthy and true to His word.^(E)

¹² So from one man, though he was physically as good as dead, there have sprung descendants whose number is as the stars of heaven and as countless as the innumerable sands on the seashore.^(F)