Now that the youths are free of the furnace, the angel returns to heaven. Nebuchadnezzar is eventually convinced by the prayers of the youths that they have been saved by God, and he command that none of his people are to deny this fact. The youths are given rewards and become counselors in Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar calls an assembly and announces that the Lord is the true and single God. However, the king is still arrogant until, the poet tells us, the Lord reduced him through force.
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of a beautiful tree rising up into the heavens and encompassing the entire world. Its branches are covered with fruit, and it provides food and shelter to every animal and bird. But then an angel commands the tree to be cut down, but the stump be left in place as a token (and when God commands, green shoots will arise from the stump). The tree is also fettered and given over for torment so that it knows that there is a being mightier than it.
Nebuchadnezzar awakes from this dream and ask his counselors what its meaning is. They do not know.
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