3. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which _was_ at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them.
4. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
5. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
6. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.
7. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. _And_ the king spake, and said to the wise _men_ of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with purple,
and _have_ a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
--First Nabonadios, second Belshazzar, his son, and third the Interpreter.
8. Then came in all the king's wise _men_: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.
9. Then was the king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied.
10. _Now_ the queen by reason of the words of the king and his lords came into the banquet house: _and_ the queen spake and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed.
--This queen was the wife of Nabonadios and mother of Belshazzar. Her death is recorded on the annalistic tablet of Cyrus. Her funeral rites were conducted by Cambyses in the "Temple of the Sceptre of the world," and his free will offerings aggregated "Ten times the usual amount," a most appropriate tribute to the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, that wonderful warrior, engineer and man of letters.
11. There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom _is_ the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, _I say_, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, _and_ soothsayers;