Chapter 67
1 Then Nebuchadnezzar, seeing what had happened, was amazed and rose up in haste, and heard them singing hymns, and said to his nobles: “Did we not throw three men, bound, into the midst of the fire?” And they said: “Truly, O king.” But he answered and said: “Behold, I see four men, loosed and walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no destruction in them, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of God.”
2 Tell me, Nebuchadnezzar, when then did you see the Son of God, that you should confess this one to be the Son of God? And who was it that pierced your heart, that you should utter such a word? With what kind of eyes were you able to behold his light as in a mirror?
3 And why was he shown to you alone and to none of the other satraps, except because it was written, “The heart of a king is in the hand of God”?
4 This hand of God, which was the Word, pierced his heart, so that, recognizing him, he might glorify him in the furnace.
5 And what we have understood here is not idle either. For since the sons of Israel were going to see the Son of God in the world and not believe, the Scripture showed beforehand that the nations would come to recognize him in the flesh, the very one whom Nebuchadnezzar, seeing him of old without flesh in the furnace, recognized and confessed to be the Son of God.