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Old Testament Reading -The Writing on the Wall

¹Belshazzar the king invited a thousand of his officers to a great feast where the wine flowed freely. ^2-4While Belshazzar was drinking, he was reminded of the gold and silver cups taken long before from the Temple in Jerusalem during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and brought to Babylon. Belshazzar ordered that these sacred cups be brought in to the feast, and when they arrived, he and his princes, wives, and concubines drank toasts from them to their idols made of gold and silver, brass and iron, wood and stone.

⁵Suddenly, as they were drinking from these cups, they saw the fingers of a man’s hand writing on the plaster of the wall opposite the lampstand. The king himself saw the fingers as they wrote. ⁶His face blanched with fear, and such terror gripped him that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way beneath him.

¹³So Daniel was rushed in to see the king. The king asked him, “Are you the Daniel brought from Israel as a captive by King Nebuchadnezzar? ¹⁴I have heard that you have the spirit of the gods within you and that you are filled with enlightenment and wisdom.

¹⁶I am told you can solve all kinds of mysteries. If you can tell me the meaning of those words, I will clothe you in purple robes, with a gold chain around your neck, and make you the third ruler in the kingdom.”

¹⁷Daniel answered, “Keep your gifts or give them to someone else, but I will tell you what the writing means.

²³For you have defied the Lord of Heaven and brought here these cups from his Temple; and you and your officers and wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, brass, iron, wood, and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not praised the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny! ^24-25And so God sent those fingers to write this message: ‘Mene,’ ‘Mene,’ ‘Tekel,’ ‘Parsin.’

²⁶“This is what it means:

“Mene means ‘numbered’—God has numbered the days of your reign, and they are ended.

²⁷“Tekel means ‘weighed’—you have been weighed in God’s balances and have failed the test.

²⁸“Parsin means ‘divided’—your kingdom will be divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”