The jealous princes of Babylon set a trap with surgical precision. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, they crafted a decree forbidding anyone from praying to any god except the king for thirty days. They sealed it with their own signet rings, and Darius confirmed it without realizing it targeted Daniel.
The conspirators found a girl playing outside Daniel's house who told them exactly where he was: in his upper chamber, kneeling at the window that faced the Temple in Jerusalem, praying three times daily as always. They seized him and dragged him before the king. Darius fought for Daniel until sunset, arguing that the decree was born of envy. The princes threatened rebellion. Finally, the king surrendered Daniel to their hands, saying, "The Lord God of the heavens shall close their mouths."
They cast Daniel into a den holding ten lions that were normally fed ten sheep and ten human bodies each day. The lions had been deliberately starved. But when Daniel descended, the beasts showed him a kind face, licked him, and wagged their tails like dogs greeting their master. A stone was rolled over the pit and sealed with the king's ring.
That same day, the prophet Habakkuk was carrying food to his reapers in the land of Judah when God commanded him to bring the meal to Daniel in Babylon. When Habakkuk protested the impossible distance, an angel seized him by the lock of his hair, lifted him together with his food, and set him down in the lions' den. Daniel ate, and the angel returned Habakkuk home before the reapers even noticed he was gone.
At dawn, Darius rushed to the den and heard Daniel singing praises. The seals were intact. Daniel emerged without a scratch. The princes and their families were thrown in instead, and the starving lions crushed their bones to dust before they hit the ground.