9. Therefore, if you do not reveal to me the dream, there is only one conclusion to be reached about you, that the interpretation is likewise false, and packed full of deception, so as to speak before me until the time passes away. And so, tell me the dream, so that I will also know that the interpretation that you tell me is likewise true."
10. Then the Chaldeans answered before the king, and they said, "There is no man on earth who can accomplish your word, O king. For neither has any king, however great and mighty, asked for an answer of this kind from every seer, and astrologer, and Chaldean.
11. For the answer that you seek, O king, is very difficult. Neither can anyone be found who can reveal it in the sight of the king, except the gods, whose conversation is not with men."
12. When he heard this, the king commanded, in fury and in great wrath, that all the wise men of Babylon should be destroyed.
13. And when the decree had gone forth, the wise men were put to death; and Daniel and his companions were sought, to be destroyed.
14. Then Daniel inquired, about the law and the sentence, of Arioch, the general of the king's army, who had gone forth to execute the wise men of Babylon.
15. And he asked him, who had received the orders of the king, for what reason such a cruel sentence had gone forth from the face of the king. And so, when Arioch had revealed the matter to Daniel,
16. Daniel went in and asked of the king that he would grant him time to reveal the solution to the king.
17. And he went into his house and explained the task to Hananiah, and Mishael, and Azariah, his companions,
18. so that they would seek mercy before the face of the God of heaven, about this mystery, and so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the other wise men of Babylon.