Daniel 2:1-16

Common English Bible

An impossible challenge

2 In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule, he had many dreams. The dreams made him anxious, but he kept sleeping. ² The king summoned the dream interpreters, enchanters, diviners, and Chaldeans to explain his dreams to him. They came and stood before the king.

³ Then the king said to them: “I had a dream, and I’m anxious to know its meaning.”

⁴ The Chaldeans answered the king in Aramaic:^[a] “Long live the king! Tell your servants the dream, and we will explain its meaning.”

⁵ The king answered the Chaldeans: “My decision is final: If you can’t tell me the dream and its meaning, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be turned into trash dumps. ⁶ But if you do explain the dream and its meaning, you’ll receive generous gifts and glorious honor from me. So explain to me the dream as well as its meaning.”

⁷ They answered him again: “The king must tell his servants the dream. We will then explain the meaning.”

⁸ The king replied: “Now I definitely know you are stalling for time, because you see that my decision is final ⁹ and that if you can’t tell me the dream, your fate is certain. You’ve conspired to make false and lying speeches before me until the situation changes. Tell me the dream now! Then I’ll know you can explain its meaning to me.”

¹⁰ The Chaldeans answered the king: “No one on earth can do what the king is asking! No king or ruler, no matter how great, has ever asked such a thing of any dream interpreter, enchanter, or Chaldean. ¹¹ What the king is asking is impossible! No one could declare the dream to the king but the gods, who don’t live among mere humans.”

¹² At this, the king exploded in a furious rage and ordered that all Babylon’s sages be wiped out. ¹³ So the command went out: The sages were to be killed. Daniel and his friends too were hunted down; they were to be killed as well.

God reveals the mystery

¹⁴ Then Daniel, with wisdom and sound judgment, responded to Arioch the king’s chief executioner, who had gone out to kill Babylon’s sages. ¹⁵ He said to Arioch the king’s royal officer, “Why is the king’s command so unreasonable?” After Arioch explained the situation to Daniel, ¹⁶ Daniel went and asked the king to give him some time so he could explain the dream’s meaning to him.