²Then the king ¹gave orders to call in the ²^amagicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers and the ³Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king.

³The king said to them, “I ¹^ahad a dream and my spirit ²is anxious to ³understand the dream.”

⁴Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in ¹^aAramaic: “^bO king, live forever! ^cTell the dream to your servants, and we will declare the interpretation.”

⁵The king replied to the Chaldeans, “¹The command from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be ²^atorn limb from limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap.

⁶“But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me ^agifts and a reward and great honor; therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation.”

⁷They answered a second time and said, “Let the king ^atell the dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.”

⁸The king replied, “I know for certain that you are ¹bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that ²the command from me is firm,

⁹that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only ^aone ¹decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt ²words before me until the ³situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may ^bknow that you can declare to me its interpretation.”

¹⁰The Chaldeans answered ¹the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter ²for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any ³^amagician, conjurer or Chaldean.

¹¹“Moreover, the thing which the king demands is ¹difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it ²to the king except ^agods, whose ^bdwelling place is not with mortal flesh.”

¹²Because of this the king became ^aindignant and very furious and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

1Lit dreamed dreams
2Lit was gone upon him
1Lit said to call
2Or soothsayer priests
3Or master astrologers, and so throughout the ch
1Lit dreamed
2Lit was troubled
3Lit know
1The text is in Aramaic from here through 7:28
1Another reading is The word has gone from me
2Lit made into limbs
1Lit buying
2V 5, note
1Or law
2Lit word
3Lit time
1Lit before the
2Lit of
3Or soothsayer priest
1Or rare
2Lit before

Cross references

a Gen 40:5–8; 41:1, 8; Job 33:15–17; Dan 2:3; 4:5
b Esth 6:1; Dan 6:18
a Gen 41:8; Ex 7:11; Is 47:12, 13; Dan 1:20; 2:10, 27; 4:6; 5:7
a Gen 40:8; 41:15; Dan 4:5
a Ezra 4:7; Is 36:11
b Dan 3:9; 5:10
c Dan 2:7
a Ezra 6:11; Dan 2:12; 3:29
a Dan 2:48; 5:7, 16, 29
a Dan 2:4
a Esth 4:11; Dan 3:15
b Is 41:23
a Dan 2:2, 27
a Gen 41:39; Dan 5:11
b Ex 29:45; Is 57:15
a Ps 76:10; Dan 2:5; 3:13, 19