(This is a copy of the letter they sent to him:)p> <p class="bodytext">&#8220;To King Artaxerxes,<n id="1" /> from your servants in<n id="2" /> Trans-Euphrates:

I was watching in the night visions,p> <p class="poetry">&#8220;And with<n id="1" /> the clouds of the sky<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">one like a son of man<n id="3" /> was approaching.p> <p class="poetry">He went up to the Ancient of Daysp> <p class="poetry">and was escorted<n id="4" /> before him.p>

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;I hereby give orders that if anyone changes this directive a beam is to be pulled out from his house and he is to be raised up and impaled<n id="1" /> on it, and his house is to be reduced<n id="2" /> to a rubbish heap<n id="3" /> for this indiscretion.<n id="4" />

<p class="bodytext">The wise men replied to the king, &#8220;There is no man on earth who is able to disclose the king&#8217;s secret,<n id="1" /> for no king, regardless of his position and power, has ever requested such a thing from any magician, astrologer, or wise man.

You have issued an edict, O king, that everyone must bow down and pay homage to the golden statue when they hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music.

<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.

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;The first one was like a lion with eagles&#8217; wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off and it was lifted up from the ground. It was made to stand on two feet like a human being, and a human mind<n id="1" /> was given to it.<n id="2" />p>

The king called out loudly<n id="1" /> to summon<n id="2" /> the astrologers, wise men, and diviners. The king proclaimed<n id="3" /> to the wise men of Babylon that anyone who could read this inscription and disclose its interpretation would be clothed in purple<n id="4" /> and have a golden collar<n id="5" /> placed on his neck and be third ruler in the kingdom.p>

So they approached the king and said to him,<n id="1" /> &#8220;Did you not issue an edict to the effect that for the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or human other than to you, O king, would be thrown into a den of lions?&#8221; The king replied, &#8220;That is correct,<n id="2" /> according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed.&#8221;