Daniel 3

English Standard Version

Nebuchadnezzar's Golden Image

3 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits^[a] and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on ^(A)the plain of Dura, in ^(B)the province of Babylon. ²Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather ^(C)the satraps, the prefects, and ^(D)the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. ³Then ^(E)the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. ⁴And the herald ^(F)proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O ^(G)peoples, nations, and languages, ⁵that when you hear the ^(H)sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you ^(I)are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. ⁶And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately ^(J)be cast into a burning fiery furnace.” ⁷Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all ^(K)the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

The Fiery Furnace

⁸Therefore at that time certain ^(L)Chaldeans ^(M)came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. ⁹They declared^[b] to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! ¹⁰You, O king, ^(N)have made a decree, that every man who ^(O)hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, ^(P)shall fall down and worship the golden image. ¹¹And whoever does not fall down and worship ^(Q)shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace. ¹²There are certain Jews whom you have ^(R)appointed over the affairs of ^(S)the province of Babylon: ^(T)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, ^(U)pay no attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

¹³Then Nebuchadnezzar ^(V)in furious rage commanded that ^(W)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. ¹⁴Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? ¹⁵Now if you are ready when ^(X)you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good.^[c] But if you do not worship, ^(Y)you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And ^(Z)who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”

¹⁶^(AA)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. ¹⁷If this be so, ^(AB)our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.^[d] ¹⁸But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

¹⁹Then Nebuchadnezzar was ^(AC)filled with fury, and the expression of his face ^(AD)was changed against ^(AE)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. ²⁰And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army ^(AF)to bind ^(AG)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. ²¹Then these men were ^(AH)bound in their cloaks, their tunics,^[e] their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. ²²Because the king's order was ^(AI)urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up ^(AJ)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. ²³And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell ^(AK)bound into the burning fiery furnace.

²⁴Then King Nebuchadnezzar was ^(AL)astonished and rose up ^(AM)in haste. He declared to his ^(AN)counselors, “Did we not cast three men ^(AO)bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” ²⁵He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, ^(AP)walking in the midst of the fire, and they ^(AQ)are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like ^(AR)a son of the gods.”

²⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, ^(AS)“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the ^(AT)Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then ^(AU)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. ²⁷And the ^(AV)satraps, the prefects, the governors, and ^(AW)the king's counselors gathered together and saw that ^(AX)the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their ^(AY)cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. ²⁸Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of ^(AZ)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who ^(BA)has sent his angel and ^(BB)delivered his servants, who ^(BC)trusted in him, and set aside^[f] the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than ^(BD)serve and worship any god except their own God. ²⁹Therefore ^(BE)I make a decree: Any ^(BF)people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of ^(BG)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego ^(BH)shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” ³⁰Then the king promoted ^(BI)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in ^(BJ)the province of Babylon.

Footnotes

Daniel 3:1 A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters
Daniel 3:9 Aramaic answered and said; also verses 24, 26
Daniel 3:15 Aramaic lacks well and good
Daniel 3:17 Or If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, he will deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and out of your hand, O king
Daniel 3:21 The meaning of the Aramaic words rendered cloaks and tunics is uncertain; also verse 27
Daniel 3:28 Aramaic and changed

Jeremiah 7-9

English Standard Version

Evil in the Land

7 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²^(A)“Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(B)Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. ⁴^(C)Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

⁵“For if you truly ^(D)amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly ^(E)execute justice one with another, ⁶if you ^(F)do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, ^(G)or shed innocent blood in this place, ^(H)and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, ⁷^(I)then I will let you dwell in this place, ^(J)in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

⁸“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹^(K)Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, ^(L)swear falsely, ^(M)make offerings to Baal, ^(N)and go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house, ^(O)which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? ¹¹^(P)Has this house, ^(Q)which is called by my name, ^(R)become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. ¹²Go now to ^(S)my place that was in Shiloh, ^(T)where I made my name dwell at first, and ^(U)see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. ¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and ^(V)when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and ^(W)when I called you, you did not answer, ¹⁴therefore I will do to ^(X)the house ^(Y)that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, ^(Z)as I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵^(AA)And I will cast you out of my sight, ^(AB)as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of ^(AC)Ephraim.

¹⁶“As for you, ^(AD)do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, ^(AE)and the women knead dough, to ^(AF)make cakes for ^(AG)the queen of heaven. And ^(AH)they pour out drink offerings to other gods, ^(AI)to provoke me to anger. ¹⁹^(AJ)Is it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, ^(AK)to their own shame? ²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, ^(AL)my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; ^(AM)it will burn and not be quenched.”

²¹Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(AN)“Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. ²²For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them ^(AO)concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³But this command I gave them: ^(AP)‘Obey my voice, and ^(AQ)I will be your God, and you shall be my people. ^(AR)And walk in all the way that I command you, ^(AS)that it may be well with you.’ ²⁴^(AT)But they did not obey or incline their ear, ^(AU)but walked in their own counsels and ^(AV)the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and ^(AW)went backward and not forward. ²⁵From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, ^(AX)I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. ²⁶^(AY)Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, ^(AZ)but stiffened their neck. ^(BA)They did worse than their fathers.

²⁷^(BB)“So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. ^(BC)You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; ^(BD)truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

²⁹^(BE)“‘Cut off your hair and cast it away;
raise a lamentation on ^(BF)the bare heights,
for the Lord has rejected and forsaken
the generation of his wrath.’

The Valley of Slaughter

³⁰“For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set ^(BG)their detestable things in the house ^(BH)that is called by my name, to ^(BI)defile it. ³¹And they have built the high places of ^(BJ)Topheth, which is in ^(BK)the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, ^(BL)to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, ^(BM)which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. ³²^(BN)Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called ^(BO)Topheth, or ^(BP)the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; ^(BQ)for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. ³³^(BR)And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, ^(BS)and none will frighten them away. ³⁴^(BT)And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, ^(BU)for the land shall become a waste.

8 “At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. ²And they shall be spread ^(BV)before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. ^(BW)And they shall not be gathered or buried. ^(BX)They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ³^(BY)Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family ^(BZ)in all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.

Sin and Treachery

⁴“You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
^(CA)When men fall, do they not rise again?
    If one turns away, does he not return?
⁵Why then has this people ^(CB)turned away
    in perpetual ^(CC)backsliding?
^(CD)They hold fast to deceit;
    they refuse to return.
⁶^(CE)I have paid attention and listened,
    but they have not spoken rightly;
no man relents of his evil,
    saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turns to his own course,
    ^(CF)like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
⁷Even the stork in the heavens
    knows her times,
and ^(CG)the turtledove, ^(CH)swallow, and crane^[a]
    keep the time of their coming,
^(CI)but my people know not
    the rules^[b] of the Lord.

⁸^(CJ)“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie.
⁹^(CK)The wise men shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed ^(CL)and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
    so what wisdom is in them?
¹⁰^(CM)Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
    everyone ^(CN)is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
¹¹They have healed ^(CO)the wound of my people lightly,
    saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
    when there is no peace.
¹²Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
    No, ^(CP)they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
^(CQ)Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
    when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
says the Lord.
¹³When I would gather them, declares the Lord,
    there are ^(CR)no grapes on the vine,
    ^(CS)nor figs on the fig tree;
^(CT)even the leaves are withered,
    and what I gave them has passed away from them.”^[c]

¹⁴Why do we sit still?
^(CU)Gather together; ^(CV)let us go into the fortified cities
    and perish there,
for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish
    and has ^(CW)given us ^(CX)poisoned water to drink,
    because we have sinned against the Lord.
¹⁵^(CY)We looked for peace, but no good came;
    for a time of healing, but behold, terror.

¹⁶^(CZ)“The snorting of their horses is heard ^(DA)from Dan;
    at the sound of the neighing ^(DB)of their stallions
    ^(DC)the whole land quakes.
They come ^(DD)and devour the land and all that fills it,
    the city and those who dwell in it.
¹⁷For behold, I am sending among you ^(DE)serpents,
    adders ^(DF)that cannot be charmed,
    ^(DG)and they shall bite you,”
declares the Lord.

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

¹⁸My joy is gone; grief is upon me;^[d]
    ^(DH)my heart is sick within me.
¹⁹Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
    from ^(DI)the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
    ^(DJ)Is her King not in her?”
^(DK)“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
    and with their foreign idols?”
²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
    and we are not saved.”
²¹For the wound of ^(DL)the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
    ^(DM)I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

²²Is there no ^(DN)balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?
9 ^[e] ^(DO)Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of ^(DP)the daughter of my people!
²^[f] Oh that I had in the desert
    a travelers' lodging place,
that I might leave my people
    and go away from them!
For they are all ^(DQ)adulterers,
    a company of ^(DR)treacherous men.
³^(DS)They bend their tongue like a bow;
    falsehood and not truth has grown strong^[g] in the land;
for they proceed from evil to evil,
    ^(DT)and they do not know me, declares the Lord.

⁴^(DU)Let everyone beware of his neighbor,
    and put no trust in any brother,
for every ^(DV)brother is a deceiver,
    and every neighbor ^(DW)goes about as a slanderer.
⁵Everyone deceives his neighbor,
    and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongue to speak lies;
    they weary themselves committing iniquity.
⁶Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit,
    ^(DX)they refuse to know me, declares the Lord.

⁷Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts:
“Behold, ^(DY)I will refine them and ^(DZ)test them,
    for what else can I do, ^(EA)because of my people?
⁸^(EB)Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
    ^(EC)it speaks deceitfully;
with his mouth ^(ED)each speaks peace to his neighbor,
    but in his heart ^(EE)he plans an ambush for him.
⁹^(EF)Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord,
    and shall I not avenge myself
    on a nation such as this?

¹⁰“I will take up weeping and wailing for the mountains,
    and a lamentation for ^(EG)the pastures of the wilderness,
^(EH)because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
    and the lowing of cattle is not heard;
^(EI)both the birds of the air and the beasts
    have fled and are gone.
¹¹^(EJ)I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
    ^(EK)a lair of jackals,
^(EL)and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,
    without inhabitant.”

¹²^(EM)Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined ^(EN)and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? ¹³And the Lord says: ^(EO)“Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, ¹⁴but ^(EP)have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. ¹⁵Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(EQ)Behold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them ^(ER)poisonous water to drink. ¹⁶^(ES)I will scatter them among the nations ^(ET)whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will ^(EU)send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

¹⁷Thus says the Lord of hosts:
^(EV)“Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
    send for the skillful women to come;
¹⁸let them make haste ^(EW)and raise a wailing over us,
    ^(EX)that our eyes may run down with tears
    and our eyelids flow with water.
¹⁹For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
    ^(EY)‘How we are ruined!
    We are utterly shamed,
because we have left the land,
    because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

²⁰Hear, O women, the word of the Lord,
    and let your ear receive the word of his mouth;
teach to your daughters a lament,
    and each to her neighbor a dirge.
²¹For death has come up into our windows;
    it has entered our palaces,
^(EZ)cutting off the children from the streets
    and the young men from the squares.
²²Speak: “Thus declares the Lord,
^(FA)‘The dead bodies of men shall fall
    like dung upon the open field,
^(FB)like sheaves after the reaper,
    and none shall gather them.’”

²³Thus says the Lord: ^(FC)“Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, ²⁴but ^(FD)let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. ^(FE)For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

²⁵“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when ^(FF)I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— ²⁶^(FG)Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and ^(FH)all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are ^(FI)uncircumcised in heart.”