Now then if you be ready, whenever you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, and pipe, and harp, and sackbut, and lute, and harmony, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the golden image which I have made; well: but if you worship not, in the same hour you shall be cast into the burning fiery furnace; and who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hand?
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Hand? Proof of this king's inconstancy, as he had witnessed the power of God!
Although he had up to this point given the youths his orders in angry fashion, yet he gives them room for a change of heart, so that their previous guilt might be pardoned if only they should fall down and worship. But if they should not deign to offer worship, the punishment of the fiery furnace lay at hand.