OET-RV GEN EXO LEV NUM DEUT JOB YEHO (JOS) HERO (JDG) RUTH 1 SAM 2 SAM PSA AMOS HOS 1 KI 2 KI 1 CHR 2 CHR PROV ECC SNG YOEL (JOEL) MIC ISA ZEP HAB YIR (JER) LAM YNA (JNA) NAH OBAD DAN EZEK EZRA EST NEH HAG ZEC MAL 2 PS WIS TOB MAN BAR G DAN G ESD L ESD ESG JDT 3 MAC SIR 1 MAC 2 MAC 4 MAC YHN (JHN) MARK MAT LUKE ACTs YAC (JAM) GAL 1 TH 2 TH 1 COR 2 COR ROM COL LAOD PHM EPH PHP 1 TIM TIT 1 PET 2 PET 2 TIM HEB YUD (JUD) 1 YHN (1 JHN) 2 YHN (2 JHN) 3 YHN (3 JHN) REV
OET-RV DAN Intro C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12
OET-RV DAN 1 V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11 V12 V13 V14 V15 V16 V17 V18 V19 V20 V21
This OET Readers’ Version was designed to be used with the Literal Version alongside, so you won’t get the best understanding from this single viewpoint. This is still an early look into the drafted text of the Open English Translation of the Bible. Please double-check the text in advance before using in public.
The account about Daniyel and his friends
(1:1–6:28)
1 In the third year of Yehudah’s (Judah’s) King Yehoyakim’s reign, Bavel’s (Babylon’s) King Nevukadnetsar (Nebuchadnezzar) came to Yerushalem (Jerusalem) and besieged the city.[ref] 2 After two years, the master allowed King Yehoyakim to be defeated by Nevukadnetsar who then took some of the items out of the temple and took them to Shin’ar where he placed them in his god’s temple storerooms.[ref]
3 Some time later, King Nevukadnetsar commanded his chief official Ashpenaz to bring him some of the young Israeli men, from both their royal family and from some of the prominent families. 4 They had to be good-looking young men without obvious defects, wise and well-educated, who would be competent for future work in the palace. They would be taught the language and literature of the Kasdim (Chaldeans), 5 and the king assigned a daily portion of food and wine for them from his own table. They would be trained for three years before entering the king’s service. 6 Among the young men from Yehudah who were chosen were Daniyel, Hananyah, Mishael, and Azaryah, 7 but Ashpenaz named them Belteshatsar (Belteshazzar), Shadrak, Meyshak, and Aved-Nego respectively.
8 However Daniyel decided that he wouldn’t eat the king’s fancy food or drink his wine because it wasn’t all ‘kosher’, so he requested permission from Ashpenaz to eat an alternative diet. 9 Now God had caused the chief official to like and respect Daniyel, 10 but he queried, “I’m afraid of my master the king, who’s assigned your food and drink—if he saw you guys looking worse than the others of your own age then I’d risk losing my head if the king got angry.”
11 So Daniyel asked the steward that Ashpenaz had assigned over the four of them, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days: let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink, 13 then after that, see how we look compared to the other young men who eat the king’s choice food. Then you can make the best decision from the evidence.”
14 So the steward agreed to that and started the ten-day trial. 15 At the end of the ten days, they looked better and healthier than all the young men who’d been eating the king’s fancy food, 16 ⇔so after that, the steward just gave them vegetables to eat instead of the choice food and wine.
17 So God gave those four young men knowledge and insight into all literature, and wisdom, and Daniyel was able to interpret any dreams and visions.
18 At the end of the three years[ref] when the king ordered them to be brought in, the chief official Ashpenaz brought them in to King Nevukadnetsar (Nebuchadnezzar). 19 The king talked with each of them and realised that none of the others were as capable as Daniyel, Hananyah, Mishael, and Azaryah, so they ended up in the king’s service—20 in every matter of wisdom and understanding which the king asked them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers from throughout his entire kingdom. 21 Daniyel continued serving there through to the first year of the reign of King Koresh (Cyrus).
