The accusers address the king with the formal O king, live forever, maintaining the external courtesy and dignity of court speech even while betraying the three youths. The accusation then immediately follows: There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no heed to you; they do not serve your gods and they do not worship the golden image that you have set up. The accusation frames the youths' refusal as quintuple disobedience: disdain for the king, refusal of state religion, and rejection of the golden image. By explicitly identifying them as Jews, the accusers invoke ethnic and religious distinctiveness as the basis for suspicion, suggesting that their Jewish identity predisposes them to political disloyalty.

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