Daniel 2:3–9

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

⁴Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in ^1aAramaic: “^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 ^2atorn 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.”