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^(A) his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets^(B) that Nebuchadnezzar his father^[a] had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines^(C) might drink from them.^(D)

⁷ The king summoned the enchanters,^(A) astrologers^[a](B) and diviners.^(C) Then he said to these wise^(D) men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck,^(E) and he will be made the third^(F) highest ruler in the kingdom.”^(G)

⁸ Then all the king’s wise men^(A) came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant.^(B)

³⁰ That very night Belshazzar,^(A) king^(B) of the Babylonians,^[a] was slain,^(C)