<t /><p class="bodytext"><v id="(4:1)" /><n id="1" /> I, Nebuchadnezzar, was relaxing in my home,<n id="2" /> living luxuriously<n id="3" /> in my palace.

After twelve months, he happened to be walking around on the battlements<n id="1" /> of the royal palace of Babylon.

Then the king departed to his palace. But he spent the night without eating, and no diversions<n id="1" /> were brought to him. He was unable to sleep.<n id="2" />p>

While under the influence<n id="1" /> of the wine, Belshazzar issued an order to bring in the gold and silver vessels &#8211; the ones that Nebuchadnezzar his father<n id="2" /> had confiscated<n id="3" /> from the temple in Jerusalem<n id="4" /> &#8211; so that the king and his nobles, together with his wives and his concubines, could drink from them.<n id="5" />

So they brought the gold and silver<n id="1" /> vessels that had been confiscated from the temple, the house of God<n id="2" /> in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, together with his wives and concubines, drank from them.

<p class="bodytext">At that very moment the fingers of a human hand appeared<n id="1" /> and wrote on the plaster of the royal palace wall, opposite the lampstand.<n id="2" /> The king was watching the back<n id="3" /> of the hand that was writing.