But if not, be it known unto thee.

Whether God will deliver them from the impending death or not, their minds are the same. They will not disobey him in order to obey the king. Like the apostles before the Jewish Sanhedrim, they judged it to be right to obey God rather than man. Hence, they declared positively,

We will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image.

The law of Israel forbade them to bow down to any graven image, or to worship any gods but Jehovah. They could not obey the king without treachery to the true God.

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