²⁷ After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden^(A) them, they held a festival in the temple of their god.^(B) While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelek.

⁴ They gave him seventy shekels^[a] of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith,^(A) and Abimelek used it to hire reckless scoundrels,^(B) who became his followers.

²⁶ “Just as it was in the days of Noah,^(A) so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. ²⁷ People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸ “It was the same in the days of Lot.^(B) People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. ²⁹ But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool!^(A) This very night your life will be demanded from you.^(B) Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’^(C)

²³ Instead, you have set yourself up against^(A) the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives^(B) and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand.^(C) But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life^(D) and all your ways.^(E)

The Writing on the Wall

5 King Belshazzar^(A) gave a great banquet^(B) for a thousand of his nobles^(C) and drank wine with them. ² While Belshazzar was drinking^(D) his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets^(E) that Nebuchadnezzar his father^[a] had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines^(F) might drink from them.^{(G) 3} So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. ⁴ As they drank the wine, they praised the gods^(H) of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.^(I)

³⁰ “Now prophesy all these words against them and say to them: