The Writing on the Wall

⁵ Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the wall of the royal palace, next to the lampstand. The king was watching the hand as it wrote.^(A)

³¹ While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came down from heaven: “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: The kingdom is taken from you!^(A)

²⁴ “So from his presence the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed.^{(A) 25} And this is the writing that was inscribed: mene,^[a] tekel, and parsin. ²⁶ This is the interpretation of the matter: mene: God has numbered the days of^[b] your kingdom and brought it to an end;^{(B) 27} tekel: you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting;^{(C) 28} peres:^[c] your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

² For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.^{(A) 3} When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape!^(B)

¹⁴ erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’^{(A) 20} But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’^(B)

¹⁵ Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and tell me its interpretation, but they were not able to reveal the interpretation of the matter.

⁸ Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king the interpretation.^(A)

³³ Immediately the sentence was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven away from human society, he ate grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers and his nails became like birds’ claws.^(A)