⁶ So when Ahijah heard her footsteps at the door, he called out, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else?” Then he told her, “I have bad news for you.

¹³ Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.

⁹ And Peter said, “How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord like this? The young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will carry you out, too.”

¹⁰ Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

³ Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. ⁴ The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God!”

⁵ As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified.

Taxes for Caesar

²⁰ Watching for their opportunity, the leaders sent spies pretending to be honest men. They tried to get Jesus to say something that could be reported to the Roman governor so he would arrest Jesus. ²¹ “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you speak and teach what is right and are not influenced by what others think. You teach the way of God truthfully. ²² Now tell us—is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

²³ He saw through their trickery and said,

²¹ For the Son of Man^[a] must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

¹⁷ Daniel answered the king, “Keep your gifts or give them to someone else, but I will tell you what the writing means. ¹⁸ Your Majesty, the Most High God gave sovereignty, majesty, glory, and honor to your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar. ¹⁹ He made him so great that people of all races and nations and languages trembled before him in fear. He killed those he wanted to kill and spared those he wanted to spare. He honored those he wanted to honor and disgraced those he wanted to disgrace. ²⁰ But when his heart and mind were puffed up with arrogance, he was brought down from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. ²¹ He was driven from human society. He was given the mind of a wild animal, and he lived among the wild donkeys. He ate grass like a cow, and he was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God rules over the kingdoms of the world and appoints anyone he desires to rule over them.

²² “You are his successor,^[a] O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself. ²³ For you have proudly defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honored the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny! ²⁴ So God has sent this hand to write this message.

²⁵ “This is the message that was written: Mene, mene, tekel, and Parsin. ²⁶ This is what these words mean:

Daniel Explains the Dream

⁷ I, the Lord, will answer all those, both Israelites and foreigners, who reject me and set up idols in their hearts and so fall into sin, and who then come to a prophet asking for my advice. ⁸ I will turn against such people and make a terrible example of them, eliminating them from among my people. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

³ “Son of man, these leaders have set up idols^[a] in their hearts. They have embraced things that will make them fall into sin. Why should I listen to their requests? ⁴ Tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: The people of Israel have set up idols in their hearts and fallen into sin, and then they go to a prophet asking for a message. So I, the Lord, will give them the kind of answer their great idolatry deserves. ⁵ I will do this to capture the minds and hearts of all my people who have turned from me to worship their detestable idols.’