On the occasion of a great banquet, Belshazzar had the temerity to order that the golden vessels his grandfather had taken from Jehovah’s temple in Jerusalem be brought in so that he, his grandees, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. So “they drank wine, and they praised the gods of gold and of silver, copper, iron, wood and stone.”​—Daniel 5:3, 4.

¹⁷ Daniel further told Belshazzar: “The God in whose hand your breath is and to whom all your ways belong you have not glorified.” (Daniel 5:23) So the handwriting served notice upon the Babylonian ruler that the days of his kingship had come to an end, that he had been weighed and found wanting, and that his kingdom was to be given to the Medes and the Persians.