Daniel stood before King Belshazzar of Babylon and delivered the verdict no ruler wants to hear. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon and translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Daniel rebuked the king for defiling the sacred vessels of the Temple. God had sent an angel to inscribe a message on the palace wall in Hebrew characters but Aramaic words: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin."
The meaning was devastating. God had "numbered" the years of Belshazzar's kingdom and found them complete. The seventy years of Israel's captivity had ended. The king had been "weighed" and found wanting. His kingdom would be "taken away" and handed to the Medes and Persians.
Daniel did not stop there. He reminded Belshazzar that his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had been humbled by God, forced to wander among wild beasts until he acknowledged the power of heaven. Belshazzar had learned nothing from this. After defeating Darius and Cyrus in battle, he thanked his idols of silver and gold rather than his Creator. Then he compounded the insult by drinking wine from the holy Temple vessels alongside his princes, wives, and concubines.
When the court heard Daniel's interpretation, terror seized them. The princes fled and trampled each other at the gates. Belshazzar collapsed onto his bed and fell into a death-like sleep. That night, a doorkeeper who had served Nebuchadnezzar drew the king's own sword from beneath his pillows and severed his head. He carried it through the darkness to Darius and Cyrus. The two kings prostrated themselves before the God of heaven, vowed to free His people and rebuild the Temple, then marched into Babylon and reduced it to wasteland like Sodom and Gomorrah. They divided the Chaldean empire between them by lot.