Deliver us from Evil

Marsha arrives at Whit's End hoping to research a school report on fantastic rescues, and she has been told the Bible holds a great one - the rescue from the fiery furnace. She plans to look it up on BEAVRS, the shop's newest invention, the Bible Education Audiovisual Research System, but the machine is broken, and Eugene Meltsner has been asked to repair it before its inventor returns from a trip to Connellsville. Bernard Walton declares that nobody needs a crazy machine anyway: he will tell Marsha the story himself. Since Marsha also needs facts and dates for her report, Eugene appoints himself supplier of details, and the two trade jabs all afternoon as the story unfolds.

Bernard begins in the days of the Babylonian captivity, when King Nebuchadnezzar has conquered Jerusalem and carried its people away as prisoners. Wanting fresh wise men for his court, the king orders his chief steward Asphenaz to train the finest of the captive Jewish youths. Among them are Daniel and his three friends, renamed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When the royal food would break God's laws, Daniel proposes a test: ten days of only vegetables and water. At the end of it the four look healthier than everyone who feasted from the king's table, and Asphenaz lets them keep their diet. Bernard points out the first thing to remember - they refused to compromise their beliefs.

Years later Nebuchadnezzar wakes from a terrible nightmare he cannot remember, and when his magicians and astrologers cannot tell him both the dream and its meaning, he furiously orders every wise man in Babylon executed - including Daniel and his friends. Daniel asks for one day, prays with his friends, and God reveals the secret. Daniel describes the king's dream: a dazzling statue with a head of gold, chest of silver, belly of brass, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay, smashed by a rock not made with human hands that grows into a mountain covering the earth. The kingdoms of men will rise and fall, Daniel explains, but God will set up a kingdom that stands forever. The amazed king makes Daniel ruler over the province of Babylon, with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as his assistants. Bernard notes the second thing to remember - Daniel and his friends relied on God, and luck had nothing to do with it.

But the king has learned nothing. He builds a golden statue ninety feet high and commands everyone to bow and worship it when the music plays, on pain of death in a fiery furnace. With Daniel away, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stand alone in their refusal. Dragged before the enraged king, they answer that their God is able to deliver them from the fire - but even if He does not, they still will not bow. Nebuchadnezzar has the furnace heated seven times hotter and the three thrown in bound, yet moments later he sees four men walking unhurt in the flames, the fourth like a son of the gods. He calls the three out, finds them unsinged and not even smelling of smoke, and blesses their God, decreeing that no one in the land may speak a word against Him.

Marsha is delighted - the story will be the highlight of her report. Eugene proudly announces that BEAVRS is now in perfect operating condition, but when asked about the fiery furnace, the machine recites "Mary Had a Little Lamb," giving Bernard one last chance to tease Eugene about their loose connections.