⁷ The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors^(A) have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next thirty days, except to you, Your Majesty, shall be thrown into the lions’ den.^(B)

⁶ Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”^(A)

² He then summoned the satraps,^(A) prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials^(B) to come to the dedication of the image he had set up.

²⁷ and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers^(A) crowded around them.^(B) They saw that the fire^(C) had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

Psalm 83^[a]

A song. A psalm of Asaph.

²⁷ Indeed Herod^(B) and Pontius Pilate^(C) met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus,^(D) whom you anointed. ²⁸ They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.^(E)