O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the
burning fiery furnace; and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O
king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not
serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

We read this morning, instead of the Te Deum, the Song of the Three
Children, beginning, 'Oh all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord:
praise him, and magnify him for ever.' It was proper to do so:
because the Ananias, Azarias, and Misael mentioned in it, are the
same as the Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, whose story we heard in
the first lesson; and because some of the old Jews held that this
noble hymn was composed by them, and sung by them in the burning
fiery furnace, wherefore it has been called 'The Song of the Three
Children;' for child, in old English, meant a young man.

Be that as it may, it is a glorious hymn, worthy of the Church of
God, worthy of those three young men, worthy of all the noble army of
martyrs; and if the three young men did not actually use the very
words of it, still it was what they believed; and, because they
believed it, they had courage to tell Nebuchadnezzar that they were
not careful to answer him--had no manner of doubt or anxiety
whatsoever as to what they were to say, when he called on them to
worship his gods. For his gods, we know, were the sun, moon, and
planets, and the angels who (as the Chaldeans believed) ruled over
the heavenly bodies; and that image of gold is supposed, by some
learned men, to have been probably a sign or picture of the wondrous
power of life and growth which there is in all earthly things--and
that a sign of which I need not speak, or you hear. So that the
meaning of this Song of the Three Children is simply this: