Old/New Testament
1 Now it happened during the third year of King Jehoiakim’s reign over Judah, the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched against him and laid siege to Jerusalem, Judah’s capital. 2 The Lord gave Nebuchadnezzar the victory and allowed him to take King Jehoiakim of Judah as his prisoner. At the same time, He permitted the Babylonian king to rob God’s temple of some of its sacred vessels and carry them away to Babylonia (called Shinar), which was the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to fill the treasury of his own gods, Marduk and Nebo.
3 After the king returned home, he commanded Ashpenaz, chief of the royal eunuchs, to bring some of the Israelites who had been taken captive to the palace. These included members of Judah’s royal family and the nobility. 4 He was looking for potential candidates from the exiles to serve in his court, fit young men with no physical or moral infirmities, handsome, skilled in all wisdom, knowledgeable, discerning, and understanding. Those selected would be taught the language and literature of the Chaldeans, the people who lived in Babylonia. 5 As part of their assimilation into Babylonian court life, the king offered them a daily portion of food and wine from his own table. They were to be educated for three years before serving in the king’s court. 6 From among Judah’s exiles, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were selected. 7 Ashpenaz, chief of the royal eunuchs, gave them Babylonian names to signify their new identities in a foreign place: Daniel he renamed Belteshazzar; Hananiah, Shadrach; Mishael, Meshach; and Azariah, Abed-nego.
Nebuchadnezzar seizes the wisest, strongest, and most powerful people in each land he conquers and deports them to Babylonia. This serves three purposes: it gives the government an unending supply of capable people; it further cripples the conquered nation, rendering them helpless; and it ensures the conquered nation will not want to retaliate because their own loved ones live in the conquering land.
Daniel and his friends are among these deportees. When they arrive in Babylonia, they are expected to assimilate to the Babylonian way of life; this includes changing their names. Nebuchadnezzar renames the deportees to complete their conversion to the Babylonian society and to demonstrate his status as their master.
8 Although the king ate only the finest Babylonian fare, Daniel was determined not to violate God’s law and defile himself by eating the food and drinking the wine that came from the king’s table; so he asked the chief of the royal eunuchs for permission not to eat the food.
Daniel’s concern is the food has been offered up to Marduk and does not meet Israelite dietary laws.
9 Now God had given Daniel special favor and fondness in the eyes of the king’s chief eunuch. 10 Still the eunuch was concerned.
Ashpenaz (to Daniel): Belteshazzar, your request puts me in a difficult position. I am afraid of what my lord the king might do. He has ordered that you are to eat the food and drink the wine prepared for his table. What will happen if he sees you and your friends over time in poorer health than the other young men your own age? I am certain he will have my head.
11 When Ashpenaz refused, Daniel reasoned with the guard whom the chief of the royal eunuchs assigned to watch over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
Daniel (to the guard): 12 Please, do us a favor. Put us, your servants, to the test for the next 10 days. Give us a vegetarian diet and water. 13 When the time is up, you can see for yourself our condition and compare it to the condition of the other young men who are eating from the king’s table. Then, after you have seen what has happened, do whatever you think is best with us, your servants.
Daniel and his companions ask for a diet consistent with God’s instructions to His covenant people: vegetables and grains, without the rich cuts of meat that are normally a staple of those who eat at the king’s table. They also want to exclude any wines or mead because they intend to avoid any unnecessary entanglements with Babylonian culture. Most of those meats and wines have been offered to the Babylonian gods, and Daniel wants no part of that. Daniel and his exiled friends may have to live in Babylon, but they don’t have to be absorbed into the culture. Every bite of every meal reminds them that they are different.
14 So the guard agreed to do as Daniel requested. He tested them on a diet of only vegetables, grains, and water for 10 days. 15 When the 10 days were up, he looked them over and noticed that Daniel and his friends were better off than all the young men eating from the king’s best foods. They looked healthy and well nourished, 16 so the guard continued to hold back their royal rations and replaced them with a strictly vegetarian diet. 17 Through all of this, God conferred upon these 4 young men superior abilities in literature, language, and wisdom. God had given Daniel an additional gift, too: the ability to interpret visions and dreams. 18 When the 3-year period of training and conditioning, as set by the king, was over, the king sent for the candidates; the chief of the royal eunuchs himself escorted them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19 The king interviewed all of them and found that none of the candidates were any better than Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; so they were each assigned an important place in the king’s court. 20 When the king inquired further into their grasp of wisdom and understanding, he discovered that they were better prepared than all the magicians and enchanters in his empire, even 10 times better. 21 This is how Daniel came to serve the royal court, a position he safely held until the first year of King Cyrus when his Persian army conquered Babylonia.
Cyrus allows some of the Judean exiles to return home around 538 b.c.
2 In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign,[a] the king had a dream that disturbed him so much that he was unable to fall asleep. 2 So the king sent for his usual advisors—magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and other Chaldean wise men—to come and help him understand the dream. They came and stood before the troubled king.
Nebuchadnezzar (to his advisors): 3 I’ve had a dream that has disturbed me. I know I am not going to have any peace until I know what it means.
Wise Men (in Aramaic):[b] 4 Long live the king! We are your servants. Tell us your dream, and we will tell you what it means.
The king has his suspicions about his advisors, so he purposely makes the task more difficult.
Nebuchadnezzar: 5 My mind is made up; my decree is firm. If you do not tell me what I dreamed and what it means, you will be torn apart, limb from limb, and those houses of yours will be turned into piles of rubble. 6 But if you do tell me what I dreamed and what it means, then you can expect to receive great honor, gifts, and other rewards as I see fit. So tell me the details of the dream and what it means.
Wise Men: 7 Perhaps the king should first tell his servants what he dreamed; then we can tell him what it means.
Nebuchadnezzar: 8 It’s obvious to me that you are just buying time, hoping to figure a way out of this, because you can plainly see I will do as I’ve said. 9 If you do not tell me what I dreamed, then there can be only one fate for you: death as I have decreed. You have conspired to lie and deceive me until the situation turns around. But it won’t. I will not change my mind. So tell me, right now, what I dreamed. If you can do that, then I will have some assurance that you can tell me what it means.
Wise Men: 10 No one on earth is able to do what the king demands. And never in history has a great and powerful king, such as yourself, asked this sort of thing of any magician, enchanter, or wise man. 11 What the king requires is far too difficult for any human being. Only the gods can reveal it to the king, and they do not live among us mortals.
12 When the king heard their reply, he was absolutely outraged and ordered that all the so-called wise men of Babylon be put to death. 13 So the decree was issued, and the king’s officials began to round up all the wise men in Babylon for execution; officers were sent to find and kill Daniel and his friends, too, for they were renowned for their wisdom. 14 As Arioch, the chief of the royal guard, was searching for the wise men of Babylon to kill them, he came across Daniel. Daniel responded to the situation shrewdly and with discretion.
Daniel: 15 What has happened? Why has the king issued such a harsh decree?
Arioch did his best to explain the situation to Daniel. 16 So Daniel entered the palace and asked the king to give him a little more time so that he could come back and tell the king both what he dreamed and what it all meant.
17 After Daniel made his request, he returned home and told his friends—Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—what was going on. 18 He asked them to pray and plead for mercy so that the God of heaven might reveal this mystery. If Daniel and his friends could tell the king what he wanted to know, then they would not be put to death along with the other wise men of Babylon. 19 Then, one night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision, and so Daniel offered this blessing to the God of heaven:
20 Daniel: Praise the name of God forever and ever,
for all wisdom and power belong to Him.
21 He sets in motion the times and the ages;
He deposes kings and installs others;
He gives wisdom to the wise
and grants knowledge to those with understanding.
22 He reveals deep truths and hidden secrets;
He knows what lies veiled in the darkness;
pure light radiates from within Him.
23 I recognize who You are, and I praise You, God of my ancestors,
for You have given me wisdom and strength.
And now You have graciously revealed to me what we asked of You,
for You have revealed to us the king’s dream and its meaning.
24 So Daniel went back to Arioch, the officer charged with rounding up and executing all the wise men in Babylon, and tried to stop him.
Daniel: Stop what you are doing. It is not necessary to execute the wise men of Babylon. Instead, take me to the king, and I will tell him what the dream means.
25 Arioch did not waste any time in bringing Daniel before the king.
Arioch (to Nebuchadnezzar): Mighty king, I have found a man from among the exiles from Judah who says he is able to tell the king what the dream means.
26 The king turned to Daniel, who you remember had been given the Babylonian name, Belteshazzar.
Nebuchadnezzar: So, Belteshazzar, are you able to tell me what I dreamed and what it all means?
Daniel: 27 The Chaldeans were correct. There are no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or sorcerers in all the world who are able to reveal the mystery the king requested. 28 But there is a God in heaven who can reveal such mysteries. The dream you dreamed and the visions you saw, King Nebuchadnezzar, unveil the future and disclose what will happen at the end of the age. Now I will tell you what you dreamed and the visions you saw as you slept in your bed.
29 Good king, as you lay in your bed that night, thoughts about the future sprang up in your mind, and the revealer of all mysteries unveiled to you what is going to happen. 30 I am here today, not because I have greater wisdom than any other in the land, but because God in His wisdom has revealed this mystery to me. It is God’s plan that the king knows the meaning of this dream and understands the thoughts that raced through your mind.
Daniel agrees with the counsel given to the king by his own advisors. No worldly source can possibly answer the king’s challenge. To know the content of the dream without any prior information is beyond anyone but the God of Israel.
Daniel: 31 In your dream, you were looking, O king, and suddenly a great statue of what appeared to be a man stood before you. It was enormous in size, shining bright as the sun at midday. Its appearance was frightening. 32 The head of the statue was fashioned of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its trunk and thighs of bronze, 33 its calves of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 As you were watching, a special stone was quarried and cut, but not by human hands. The divinely hewn stone began to move; it struck the statue on its iron and clay feet and smashed them to pieces. 35 Suddenly the entire statue collapsed—its iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were all broken into pieces and turned to dust, like the chaff carried away by the wind from the threshing floors in summer. Soon not a trace of the statue was left. But the divinely hewn stone that struck the statue became a mountain that filled the whole earth. 36 That, good king, was your dream.
If you allow, we will now tell you what it all means. 37 You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has conferred upon you the kingdom you now rule, along with the power and strength and glory to subdue it. 38 He has placed all people everywhere and all the beasts that roam the fields and all the birds that fly in the sky under your control. He has made you ruler over them all: you are the head of gold. 39 After your reign is over, another kingdom will rise, but its glory will never match yours. This lesser kingdom is the chest and arms of silver. When that kingdom has come and gone, a third and even less majestic empire will rise, which will rule over the whole earth. This kingdom is the trunk and thighs of bronze. 40 Then, when those days are past, a fourth kingdom will come to power with the strength of iron, though lacking in grandeur. Just as iron breaks and shatters everything, so this kingdom will break and shatter all these former realms. 41-42 But as you saw in your vision, this kingdom will be divided, with feet and toes made of both clay and iron. The strength of iron runs through it, but as the toes are made partly of iron and partly of clay, the kingdom, too, will be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 Your dream envisions that this kingdom of iron mixed with clay will be of peoples mixed but not united, the kingdoms joined in the bonds of marriage but not true allies, for iron and clay form no alloy.
These four kingdoms of gold, silver, bronze, and iron/clay are probably the Neo-Babylonian, Median, Persian, and Greek kingdoms, respectively.
44 In the days when these kings of iron and clay reign, the God of heaven will set up another kingdom, a kingdom that can never be destroyed, a kingdom that will never be ruled by others. It will crush all the other kingdoms and bring them to an end. This kingdom will last forever. 45 It will be as you have seen in your dream, that a special stone quarried and cut from the mountain—but not by human hands—will crush the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The great God, the one True God of heaven, has revealed to the king what will happen in the future. You can be sure that the dream and its meaning are true.
46 When Daniel had finished, King Nebuchadnezzar did something remarkable. He fell on his face before Daniel, worshiped him, and ordered his officials to offer grain offerings and burn incense to him as they would to a god.
Nebuchadnezzar: 47 I am now certain that your God is the God of all gods, the Lord of all kings, and the Revealer of mysteries, for unlike the other wise men in my service, you were able to reveal to me this mystery. You told me not only what I dreamed but what it all means.
48 The king bestowed high honors and many gifts on Daniel. He promoted him to new positions in his court and made him governor over the whole province of Babylon and head over all the wise men in his realm. 49 Daniel approached the king and requested that he put his friends—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego—in charge of affairs in the province of Babylon while Daniel remained in the royal court.
4 My loved ones, I warn you: do not trust every spirit. Instead, examine them carefully to determine if they come from God, because the corrupt world is filled with the voices of many false prophets. 2 Here is how you know God’s Spirit: if a spirit affirms the truth that Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, has come in human flesh, then that spirit is from God. 3 If a spirit does not affirm the true nature of Jesus the Anointed, then that spirit does not come from God and is, in fact, the spirit of the antiChrist.[a] You have heard about its coming; in fact it is already active in the world. 4 My children, you have come from God and have conquered these spirits because the One who lives within you is greater than the one in this world. 5 But they are of this world, and they articulate the views of the corrupt world, which the world understands. 6 We come from God, and those who know God hear us. Whoever is not from God will not listen to us. This is the way we discern the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.
How can the words of prophets be tested to discover the truth? The most important question is whether they acknowledge that Jesus is fully God and fully human. In the first century, many people were so convinced that this material world was corrupt and evil that they couldn’t imagine how a perfect God could wrap Himself in imperfect skin. Many today still function as if the physical world is a bad thing; this understanding is demonstrated when they downplay the hope of bodily resurrection and emphasize the heavenly destination of souls. Implicitly, this belittles Jesus’ own incarnation and resurrection.
On the other hand, many people accept Jesus’ humanity but deny His divinity. He may have been a great teacher, they say, but certainly not the incarnation of God. However, Jesus made bold claims about who He was and what He came to do. These are not the things a great teacher would have said or done if they had not been true. It is fair to say that no other life has drawn so much scrutiny, and no other life has ever elicited such praise.
7 My loved ones, let us devote ourselves to loving one another. Love comes straight from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and truly knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 Because of this, the love of God is a reality among us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we could find true life through Him. 10 This is the embodiment of true love: not that we have loved God first, but that He loved us and sent His unique Son on a special mission to become an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 So, my loved ones, if God loved us so sacrificially, surely we should love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God with human eyes; but if we love one another, God truly lives in us. Consequently God’s love has accomplished its mission among us.
13 How can we be sure that He truly lives in us and that we truly live in Him? By one fact: He has given us His Spirit. 14 We have watched what God has done, and we stand ready to provide eyewitness testimonies to the reality that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone unites with our confession that Jesus is God’s own Son, then God truly lives in that person and that person lives in God. 16 We have experienced and we have entrusted our lives to the love of God in us.
God is love. Anyone who lives faithfully in love also lives faithfully in God, and God lives in him. 17 This love is fulfilled with us, so that on the day of judgment we have confidence based on our identification with Jesus in this world. 18 Love will never invoke fear. Perfect love expels fear, particularly the fear of punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been completed through love.
19 We love because He has first loved us. 20 If someone claims, “I love God,” but hates his brother or sister, then he is a liar. Anyone who does not love a brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot possibly love God, whom he has never seen. 21 He gave us a clear command, that all who love God must also love their brothers and sisters.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.