4 King Nevukadnetstsar (Nebuchadnezzar) sent this message to all people groups, nations, and languages that live all over the world:

May you have peace and prosperity. 2 It seemed good to me to let you all know about the amazing miracles that the supreme God has done for me.

3 The miracles he does are incredible,

≈ and his acts of creation are powerful.

His kingdom will last forever,

≈ and his authority goes from one generation to another.

4 I, Nevukadnetstsar, was doing well at home, and prospering at my work in my palace, 5 but one night as I lay in bed, I had a dream that scared me—the images and visions in my head terrified me. 6 So I summoned all of Babylon’s wise men to come and tell me the interpretation of the dream. 7 When those magicians, fortune-tellers, sorcerers and astrologers arrived, I told them the dream, but they didn’t know the interpretation.

8 Finally, Daniel came in—he’d been named Belteshatstsar (Belteshazzar) after my god’s name. The spirit of the holy gods is in him, and I told him the dream: 9 “Oh Belteshatstsar, chief of the magicians, since I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too difficult for you, go through the visions of my dream and tell me their interpretation.

10 This is the vision that was in my mind as a lay in bed: I was looking and was surprised to see a very tall tree growing in the middle of a field. 11 The tree kept growing taller and stronger until its top reached the sky and it could be seen from all over the world. 12 It had beautiful leaves were beautiful and lots of fruit on it. It provided food for everything, the animals in the countryside found shade under it, and the birds of the sky lived in its branches. Every living thing benefitted from it.

13 I was looking at the visions in my mind as I lay in bed, and then, wow, a holy sentinel came down from the heavens. 14 He shouted loudly, ‘Chop that tree down and cut its branches off, strip off its leaves, and scatter its fruit. Let the animals run away from under it and the birds from its branches. 15 But leave the stump with its roots in the ground, and bind it with a band of iron and bronze. Let it become wet with the dew in the tender grass of the field, accompanied only by those animals that live in the grass. 16 Let his mind[fn] be changed from a man to an animal as seven periods pass over him. 17 That sentence is by the decree of the sentinels, and the decision is a command of the holy ones, so that the living may know that the highest one is ruler over human kingdoms and gives them to whoever he wants—even to those who seem unimportant.’

18 I, King Nevukadnetstsar, had this dream. Now you, O Belteshatstsar, tell me the interpretation, because none of the wise men in my kingdom can tell me the interpretation. But you can, because the spirit of the holy gods is in you.”