Daniel 5:1-8 ▼

1 BELSHAZZAR the king made a great feast to a thousand of his princes, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand.

2 And Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines might drink out of them.

3 Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of God which was at Jerusalem, and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines drank out of them.

4 They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

5 In that very hour there appeared the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote opposite the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, and the king saw the palm of the man's hand that wrote.

6 Then the king's countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him and the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees struck one against another.

7 Then the king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, the soothsayers, and the wise men. And the king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall rule over a third of the kingdom.

8 Then came in all the king's wise men; but they could not read the writing nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.