4. They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone.
5. Immediately human fingers appeared and they wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the palace of the king, and the king was watching the palm of the hand that was writing.
6. Then his face changed and his thoughts terrified him, and his hip joints gave way and his knees knocked together.
7. The king cried aloud to bring in the conjurers, the astrologers and the diviners; the king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon, “Any man that can read this writing and can tell me its explanation will be clothed in purple and will have a necklace of gold hung around his neck and he will rule as third in authority in the kingdom.”
8. Then all the wise men of the king came in, but they were not able to read the writing or to make known its explanation.