PERES, thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

Now, O king, establish the interdict, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.

Then these men assembled together to the king, and said to the king, Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians, that no interdict nor statute which the king establishes may be changed.

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans,