The Story of Daniel in the Lions’ Den

The story of Daniel in the lions’ den illustrates courage and integrity. Here is a children’s version of the story based on chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel.

At the time of this story, about 3000 years ago, there was an empire called Babylon. Its king ruled over many other groups of people including the people of Israel. Some of the young boys of Israel, including a boy named Daniel, had to go and live in Babylon where they were trained to help the people in the government of Babylon. Before they were taken to Babylon, their parents told them to remember to follow the religion they had been taught and to always behave as God wanted them to behave.

In Babylon, the boys learned a lot and were very helpful to the king and the other important people in his court. Daniel, in particular, was able to help the king. King Darius trusted Daniel and gave him important jobs to do. Daniel always tried to do the right thing and continued to follow the religion he had learned as a young boy before being taken to Babylon. Since he was very important to the king, some of the Babylonians were jealous of Daniel. They knew that Daniel often prayed to God and thought of a way to use that to try to hurt Daniel. They persuaded King Darius to authorize a law they suggested that people could only pray to King Darius. The punishment for disobeying the law would be to be thrown into a den of lions. King Darius liked the law. He thought it would make him more powerful so he agreed to make this law. He didn’t think about what would happen to his friend Daniel. Laws were important in Babylon and once the king had signed a law even he could not easily change it.

The jealous Babylonians spied on Daniel and saw him praying in spite of the new law. They hurried to tell King Darius. The king was upset. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to Daniel but thought he had to follow the law. He said to Daniel, “May your God rescue you!”

Daniel was put into the lions’ den. King Darius could not eat or sleep worrying about what he had done. In the morning, King Darius went close to the den and called out to Daniel. He was overjoyed when Daniel answered and had Daniel released from the den. He then made a new law that everyone should pray to the God who saved Daniel from the lions.New Paragraph