and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.”
Parallel translations
- WEB and whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall the same hour be cast into the middle of a burning fiery furnace.
- KJV And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.
- BSB And whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace.”
- NASB But whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into the middle of a furnace of blazing fire.”
- NLT Anyone who refuses to obey will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Anyone refusing to bow is to be thrown at once into a blazing furnace. The decree backs idolatry with the threat of death.
Overview
The furnace makes the cost of faithfulness brutally clear: bow or burn. Babylon offers no middle ground, exposing the tyranny that lies behind enforced worship. This deadly ultimatum sets up the great test of whether the Hebrews will fear God or man, a choice every persecuted believer eventually faces.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Matt 13:42and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
- Matt 13:50and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.”
- Jer 29:22A curse shall be taken up about them by all the captives of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, ‘Yahweh make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire;’
- Dan 3:15Now if you are ready whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image which I have made, good: but if you don’t worship, you shall be cast the same hour into the middle of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands?
- Dan 3:11and whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall be cast into the middle of a burning fiery furnace.
- Rev 9:2He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit.
- Rev 14:11The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. They have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.
- Ezek 22:18–22“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me. All of them are brass, tin, iron, and lead in the middle of the furnace. They are the dross of silver.
- Rev 13:15–17It was given to him to give breath to it, to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause as many as wouldn’t worship the image of the beast to be killed.
- Dan 6:7All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the satraps, the counselors and the governors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a strong decree, that whoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, except of you, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.
- Gen 19:28He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
- Dan 2:12–13For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
- Isa 44:17The rest of it he makes into a god, even his engraved image. He bows down to it and worships, and prays to it, and says, “Deliver me; for you are my god!”
- Exod 20:5you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
- Dan 3:21Then these men were bound in their pants, their tunics, and their mantles, and their other clothes, and were cast into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.
- Dan 2:5The king answered the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if you don’t make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
- Matt 4:9He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.”
- Mark 6:27Immediately the king sent out a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring John’s head, and he went and beheaded him in the prison,
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Christ at the center
Daniel sees the stone cut without hands that shatters the kingdoms, and 'one like a son of man' given everlasting dominion — titles and visions Jesus claims as his own.
How Daniel 3:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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