The Bible Study Podcast, episode 212. Today, the Bible Study podcast starts a study of the book of Daniel.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

Marie had written in and suggested two books as book studies

for the next episodes. One was Esther and the other was Daniel. And I've chosen Daniel in part

because the beginning part of the book of Daniel is very interesting and there's at least two very

famous stories in there about faith. And we'll get it into those. The second half

of the book of Daniel actually will probably do more skimming through because it's a little more

difficult to understand. It's more apocryphal writing, and we'll talk about what that means later on.

And I'm not doing Esther at this time, and probably not next next because Esther is an interesting book of the

Bible. Great story. Esther's the only book of the Bible that doesn't mention God. So not what

we're going to focus on for the Bible study podcast at this time. Great book. Go ahead and read it.

Interesting story, but not going to do it right now. Daniel 1. In the third year of the reign of Jehoakim, King of Judah,

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoakim,

King of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the

temple of his God in Babylonia, and put the treasure in the house of his God. Then the king ordered

Ashpanaz, chief of the court officials, to bring into the king's service some of the Israelites

from the royal family and the nobility, young men without any physical defect,

handsome showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well-informed, quick to understand, and qualified

to serve in the king's palace. He was to teach them the language of the literature of the Babylonians.

The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table.

They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king's service.

Among those who were chosen were some from Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Michel, Michel, Michel, and Azariah.

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