1. One night King Belshazzar invited a thousand noblemen to a great banquet, and they drank wine together.
2. While they were drinking, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups and bowls which his father Nebuchadnezzar had carried off from the Temple in Jerusalem. The king sent for them so that he, his noblemen, his wives, and his concubines could drink out of them.
3. At once the gold cups and bowls were brought in, and they all drank wine out of them
4. and praised gods made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
5. Suddenly a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster wall of the palace, where the light from the lamps was shining most brightly. And the king saw the hand as it was writing.