1. I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and flourishing in my palace.
2. I had a dream that frightened me. While on my bed the images and visions in my mind terrified me.
3. So I issued a decree to bring all the wise men of Babylon before me so that they could make known to me the meaning of the dream.
4. When the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans and diviners came in, I recounted the dream to them, but they were unable to make known its interpretation to me.
5. Finally Daniel—whose name was Belteshazzar after the name of my god and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods—came in before me and I told him the dream.
6. I said, “Belteshazzar, master of the magicians, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery baffles you. Consider my dream that I have seen and tell me its interpretation.
7. “These are the visions in my head while I was on my bed: I looked, and behold, there was a tree in the midst of the earth. Its height was enormous.
8. The tree grew large and became strong and its top reached to heaven; it was visible to the ends of the earth.
9. Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on it was food for all. Beneath it the beasts of the field found shade and birds of the sky lived in its branches, and from it all creatures were fed.
10. “I was watching the visions in my mind while on my bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, descended from heaven.
11. He called loudly, saying: ‘Chop down the tree and cut off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit! Let beasts flee from under it, and birds from its branches.
12. Yet leave a stump with its roots in the earth, in fetters of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field. Let him be damp with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the animals in the grass of the earth.