1
Belshazzar the king made a great banquet to a thousand of his lords, and against the thousand he drank wine.
2
Belshazzar, under the influence of the wine, commanded that they bring the vessels of gold and of silver which Nebuchadnezzar his father had brought from the temple of Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink with them.
3
Then they brought the vessels of gold that they had brought from the temple of the house of God which
was in Jerusalem; and the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank with 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 same hour some fingers of
a man’s hand came forth and wrote in front of the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the palm of the hand that wrote.
6
Then the king became pale, and his thoughts troubled him, and the girdings of his loins were unloosed, and his knees smote one against another.
7
The king cried in
a loud voice that they bring in the magicians, the Chaldeans, and the fortune-tellers. The king spoke and said to the wise
men of Babylon, Whoever shall read this writing and show me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and
have a chain of gold about his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
8
Then all the king’s wise
men came in, but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king its interpretation.