Child's Story of the BibleLathbury, Mary A. (Mary Artemisia)
Religion
Child's Story of the Bible
Lathbury, Mary A. (Mary Artemisia)
Bible stories, English
That night Daniel saw in a vision from God the same thing that the king
had seen and had forgotten. It was a great image standing before the
king, and shining like the sun. The head was of pure gold, the breast
and arms of silver, and the rest of the body of brass; while the legs
were of iron, and the feet were part of iron and part of clay. As he
looked a great stone cut from a mountain by unseen hands was hurled at
the image, striking its feet and breaking them. Then the image fell
and broke into pieces so fine that the winds blew them away, but the
stone grew to be a great mountain that filled the earth.
Then Daniel gave thanks to God for showing him the dream, and went to
the king.
He told the king that the God of Heaven alone had revealed the dream,
for no man could know it, and he told him what the dream had been. He
also told him that God had shown him the meaning; that the head of gold
was the king himself, who reigned over the greatest kingdom on earth,
but after him new kingdoms would rise, and the silver, the brass, the
iron and the clay stood for these; but in the days of the kingdom of
iron and clay the God of heaven would set up a kingdom which should
never be destroyed, but it would destroy all the kingdoms that had gone
before it. This kingdom--the great stone cut without hands from the
mountain--meant the Kingdom of Christ.
The king was so astonished at Daniel's wisdom--for it was the dream he
had forgotten brought back and interpreted--that he fell on his face
before Daniel and reverenced the God of heaven. He made Daniel chief
ruler in his realm and gave also great honors to his friends.
Nebuchadnezzar soon forgot God, for he set up a great golden image on
the plain of Dura, and called a feast of dedication. He had all his
princes and governors there, and his captains, and judges, and rulers.
The musicians were there also, with many kinds of instruments, and a
herald was there who cried in a loud voice the command of the king. It
was a call to worship the golden image. At the first sound of the
bands of music all were to fall down before the golden image, or
failing to do so, be thrown into a fiery furnace.
Among the rulers were the three friends of Daniel, whose names had been
changed by the king to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They did not
fall before the golden image, and some jealous Chaldeans who saw them
went and told the king. Then the king, who had a fiery temper, was
angry, and sent for the three young men. He told them the bands should
play again, and if they failed to worship the golden image they should
be cast into the furnace, "and who is that God that shall deliver you
out of my hands?" he asked.
"We are not careful to answer thee in this matter," they said, "If it
be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning
fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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