King James Bible
"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
This metaphor of death as sleep points to bodily resurrection, a revolutionary concept in Hebrew thought that emerged during the exilic period. The phrase 'dust of the earth' echoes Genesis 3:19, emphasizing the reversal of death's curse through divine intervention. The righteous receive eternal existence in God's presence, marking one of the Old Testament's clearest affirmations of conscious life after death. This promise would have encouraged faithful Jews facing persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The wicked face eternal disgrace rather than annihilation, establishing a dual destiny based on moral choices. This introduces the concept of eternal judgment that becomes central to later Jewish and Christian eschatology.