Belshazzar

Old King Belshazzar was the merry son of Nebuchadnezzer and he called for more wine. "Barkeep!' he spewled, "Set 'em up in those goblets Daddy plundered from the temple of the Jews! Let's drink to wood and stone! Then we'll drink to brass and iron! Then let's drink to silver and gold!" He also called for his fiddlers three, but before the music could play, writing appeared on the walled street.

"What's this?" he demanded to be told. "'Many, many tickle a parson?'"

No Babylonian could make heads or tails of it.

Daniel stepped up and said "No sir. Mene, mene tekel u-pharsin. Mene mene is money money. Tekel's a shekel; a coin and a weight. Upharsin's a half a mene. Numbered. Weighed. Divided. Your value has been weighed and your stock's dropped."

"Say what?"

""Your days are numbered."

"Oh, crap," whined Belshazzar, in Babylonian, of course.

"Not only that," continued Daniel, "but your menes are being absorbed by the Medes and your upharsin's are being taken over by the Persians. You're due for a bailout."

But Babylon didn't go in for that socialist stuff. Belshazzar was clobbered with a candlestick and Babylon went belly up.