2In the second year that Nebuchadnezzar was king, he had a dream. It worried him so much that he couldn’t sleep, ²so he sent for his fortune tellers, magicians, sorcerers, and wizards to come and explain the dream to him. When they came and stood before the king, ³he said to them, “I’m worried about a dream I have had. I want to know what it means.”

⁴They answered the king in Aramaic,^a “May Your Majesty live for ever! Tell us your dream, and we will explain it to you.”

⁵The king said to them, “I have made up my mind that you must tell me the dream and then tell me what it means. If you can’t, I’ll have you torn limb from limb and make your houses a pile of ruins. ⁶But if you can tell me both the dream and its meaning, I will reward you with gifts and great honour. Now then, tell me what the dream was and what it means.”

⁷They answered the king again, “If Your Majesty will only tell us what the dream was, we will explain it.”

⁸At that, the king exclaimed, “Just as I thought! You are trying to gain time, because you see that I have made up my mind ⁹to give all of you the same punishment if you don’t tell me the dream. You have agreed among yourselves to go on telling me lies because you hope that in time things will change. Tell me what the dream was, and then I will know that you can also tell me what it means.”

¹⁰The advisers replied, “There is no one on the face of the earth who can tell Your Majesty what you want to know. No king, not even the greatest and most powerful, has ever made such a demand of his fortune tellers, magicians, and wizards. ¹¹What Your Majesty is asking for is so difficult that no one can do it for you except the gods, and they do not live among human beings.”

¹²At that, the king flew into a rage and ordered the execution of all the royal advisers in Babylon.

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Footnotes

aFrom here to the end of chapter 7, the language used is Aramaic, not Hebrew.