5 Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote.6 Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.7 The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.”8 Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation.
