22 “But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. 23 Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. 24 Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription.
25 “This is the inscription that was written:
mene, mene, tekel, parsin
26 “This is what these words mean:
Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
27 Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
28 Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
Just in case your biblical literacy isn't quite there, this is where "the writing on the wall" comes from. {Update 930PM-According to Beloit U's Mindset List, the typical college freshman of today fits that statement-#3 on the list is "The Biblical sources of terms such as “Forbidden Fruit,” “The writing on the wall,” “Good Samaritan,” and “The Promised Land” are unknown to most of them." I just saw that just now and my quip was a bit spooky.}
Note that we get a double-mene; full stop, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 minas.
Proverbs has a number of passages on honest weights, and Belshazzar is a bit of a light-weight in God's eyes, short-changing God (even giving Him the middle-digit salute with the party that preceded this passage) and short-changing His people.
God doesn't always step in to rid a country of a bad leader; don't expect to see "your kingdom is divided and given to the Mormons and Catholics" anytime soon. However, He can and will arrange for bad things to happen to bad people when called for.
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