17. Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, or give your rewards to another. Yet I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation.
18. “O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor.
19. And for the majesty that He gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he slaughtered, and whom he would, he kept alive; whom he would, he set up, and whom he would, he put down.
20. But when his heart was lifted up and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne and they took his glory from him.
21. And he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was given grass to eat like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that He appoints over it whomever He wills.
22. “Yet you, his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this;
23. but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine in them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know. And the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified.
24. Then the hand was sent from Him, and this inscription was written.
25. “This is the inscription that was written:
26. “This is the interpretation of the message:Mene: God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it.
27. Tekel: you have been weighed in the balances and are found wanting.
28. Peres: your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
29. Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
30. That same night Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans was slain.
31. Then Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.