The watcher’s sentence

10I was looking in the visions of my head as I lay on my bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven.

11He cried aloud and said thus: ‘Chop down the tree, and cut off its branches; strip off its foliage, and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from beneath it, and the birds from its branches.’

12Nevertheless, leave the stump of its roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and bronze in the grass of the field; and let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth.

13Let his heart be changed from that of a man, and let the heart of a beast be given to him, and let seven times pass over him.

14The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the decision by the word of the holy ones, so that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom he wills, and sets up over it the lowliest of men.

15This is the dream that I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw. And you, Belteshazzar, tell its interpretation, because all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make its interpretation known to me, but you are able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in you.