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)

⁵ Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote.

²⁵ “This is the inscription that was written:

²⁶ “Here is what these words mean:

²⁹ Then at Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck,^(G) and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom.^(H)

³⁰ That very night Belshazzar,^(I) king^(J) of the Babylonians,^[d] was slain,^{(K) 31} and Darius^(L) the Mede^(M) took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.^[e]