The Daily Audio Bible

Handwriting on the Wall

5 King Belshazzar held a great feast for 1,000 of his nobles and was drinking wine in front of the thousand. ² When Belshazzar tasted the wine, he issued an order to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the Temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his consorts and his concubines could drink from them. ³ So they brought the gold vessels that were taken out of the Temple of the House of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, consorts and concubines drank from them. ⁴ They drank the wine and praised the gods made of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone.

⁵ At that very moment, the fingers of a human hand emerged and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace opposite the lampstand, so that the king could see the back of the hand that was writing. ⁶ The color drained from the king’s face, his thoughts alarmed him, his hips gave way and his knees began knocking together.

⁷ The king called loudly to summon the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the diviners. The king said to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain around his neck, and will have authority as the third ruler in the kingdom!”

⁸ Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the inscription nor tell the king what it meant. ⁹ So King Belshazzar became even more terrified and his face grew pale. His nobles were baffled.

¹⁰ The queen hearing the words of the king and his nobles entered the banquet hall. The queen spoke out and said, “May the king live forever! Do not let your thoughts frighten you, or your face be so pale! ¹¹ There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the days of your father, he was found to have insight and intelligence, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods. So King Nebuchadnezzar your father made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans and diviners. ¹² This man Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, was found to have extraordinary spirit, knowledge and insight for interpreting dreams, explaining riddles, and solving problems. Now, let Daniel be summoned and he will explain the interpretation.”

¹³ So Daniel was brought before the king and the king said to Daniel, “Are you Daniel who is one of the captives of Judah that my father the king brought from Judah? ¹⁴ I have heard about you, how a spirit of the gods is in you and how there has been found in you insight, discernment and extraordinary wisdom. ¹⁵ Just now the wise men and diviners were brought before me to read this writing and to make its meaning known to me, but they are unable to declare its interpretation. ¹⁶ However, I have heard about you that you are able to provide interpretations and to solve difficult problems. Now if you are able to read the writing and explain to me its meaning, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain around your neck and have the authority to rule as the third in the kingdom.”

¹⁷ Then Daniel answered the king saying, “You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and tell him its meaning. ¹⁸ Your majesty, God Most High gave your father Nebuchadnezzar the kingdom, as well as greatness, glory, and splendor. ¹⁹ Because of the grandeur that He bestowed on him, all the peoples, nations and languages dreaded and feared him. He killed whomever he wanted and spared anyone he wanted; he raised up whomever he wished and humbled anyone he wished. ²⁰ But when his heart became haughty and his spirit hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. ²¹ He was driven away from among men and his mind became like an animal, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; he fed on grass like an ox, and his body was damp with the dew of heaven until he recognized that God Most High is sovereign over the realm of mankind and that He sets up over it whomever He wills.

²² “But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this. ²³ Instead you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You had the vessels of His House brought before you, and you and your nobles, your consorts and your concubines have been drinking wine in them. You have praised the gods made of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. Yet you did not honor the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways. ²⁴ Therefore, the hand was sent from Him that wrote this inscription.

²⁵ “Now this is the writing that was inscribed:

MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPARSIN.

²⁶ This is the interpretation of the inscription:

MENE: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.

²⁷ TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

²⁸ PERES: Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

²⁹ Then at Belshazzar’s command, they clothed Daniel with purple, put a chain of gold around his neck, and issued a proclamation about him that he would have the authority as third ruler in the kingdom.

³⁰ On that very night King Belshazzar of the Chaldeans was slain.

False Teachers Condemned

2 But false prophets also arose among the people,^[a] just as there will also be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies. They will even deny the Master who bought them^[b]—bringing swift destruction upon themselves. ² Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result the way of the truth will be maligned. ³ In their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

⁴ For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but threw them into Sheol.^[c] He put them in chains of gloomy darkness, to be held until the judgment. ^{[d] 5} He did not spare the ancient world. He preserved only Noah, a proclaimer of righteousness, along with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. ⁶ He devastated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ashes^[e]—making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. ⁷ He rescued Lot, a righteous man deeply troubled by the shameless immorality of the wicked. ^{[f] 8} (For that righteous man, while living among them, was tormented in his righteous soul day after day by lawless deeds he saw and heard.) ⁹ Therefore the Lord certainly knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and how to keep the unrighteous being punished until the Day of Judgment— ¹⁰ especially those who follow after the flesh in its unclean desires and who despise the Lord’s authority.^[g]

Brazen and arrogant, these people do not tremble while slandering glorious beings; ¹¹ yet even angels, though stronger and more powerful, do not bring a slanderous charge against them before the Lord. ^{[h] 12} But these people are like irrational animals—creatures of instinct born to be captured and killed. They malign what they don’t understand, and in their destruction they will be utterly destroyed. ¹³ They will be paid back for what they have done—evil for evil.^[i] They consider carousing in broad daylight a pleasure. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceitful pleasures while feasting together with you. ¹⁴ They have eyes full of adultery that never stop sinning, enticing unstable souls. They have hearts trained in greed—a cursed brood! ¹⁵ They have abandoned the straight way. They have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor,^[j] who loved the wages of wickedness. ¹⁶ But he received a rebuke for his own wrongdoing. A dumb donkey spoke with a man’s voice and put a stop to the prophet’s madness.^[k]

¹⁷ These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. The gloom of utter darkness has been reserved for them. ^{[l] 18} For by mouthing grandiosities that amount to nothing, they entice in sensual fleshly passions those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption—for a person is a slave to whatever has overcome him. ²⁰ For if—after escaping the world’s pollutions through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Yeshua the Messiah—they again become entangled in these things and are overcome, the end for them has become worse than the beginning. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after learning about it, to turn back from the holy commandment passed on to them. ^{[m] 22} What has happened to them confirms the truth of the proverb, “A dog returns to its vomit,”^[n] and “A scrubbed pig heads right back into the mud.”

SAMECH ס

AYIN ע

Wisdom About Finances