Daniel 2:9-13

2:9 If you don’t inform me of the dream, there is only one thing that is going to happen to you. ¹  For you have agreed among yourselves to report to me something false and deceitful ²  until such time as things might change. So tell me the dream, and I will have confidence ³  that you can disclose its interpretation.”

2:10 The wise men replied to the king, “There is no man on earth who is able to disclose the king’s secret, ⁴  for no king, regardless of his position and power, has ever requested such a thing from any magician, astrologer, or wise man. 2:11 What the king is asking is too difficult, and no one exists who can disclose it to the king, except for the gods – but they don’t live among mortals!” ⁵ 

2:12 Because of this the king got furiously angry ⁶  and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. 2:13 So a decree went out, and the wise men were about ⁷  to be executed. They also sought ⁸  Daniel and his friends so that they could be executed.

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¹ tn Aram “one is your law,” i.e., only one thing is applicable to you.

² tn Aram “a lying and corrupt word.”

³ tn Aram “I will know.”

⁴ tn Aram “matter, thing.”

⁵ tn Aram “whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

⁶ tn Aram “was angry and very furious.” The expression is a hendiadys (two words or phrases expressing a single idea).

⁷ tn The Aramaic participle is used here to express the imminent future.

⁸ tn The impersonal active plural (“they sought”) of the Aramaic verb could also be translated as an English passive: “Daniel and his friends were sought” (cf. NAB).