18. The Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar kingship, greatness, splendor, and majesty.
19. Because he made him so great, the nations and peoples of every language dreaded and feared him. Whomever he willed, he would kill or let live; whomever he willed, he would exalt or humble.
20. But when his heart became proud and his spirit hardened by insolence, he was put down from his royal throne and deprived of his glory;
21. he was cast out from human society and his heart was made like that of a beast; he lived with wild asses, and ate grass like an ox; his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God is sovereign over human kingship and sets over it whom he will.
22. You, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this;
23. you have rebelled against the Lord of heaven. You had the vessels of his temple brought before you, so that you and your nobles, your consorts and your concubines, might drink wine from them; and you praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, that neither see nor hear nor have intelligence. But the God in whose hand is your very breath and the whole course of your life, you did not glorify.
24. By him was the hand sent, and the writing set down.
25. “This is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Tekel, and Peres. These words mean:
26. Mene, God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it;
27. Tekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting;
28. Peres, your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”