Daniel 2:24-45

Evangelical Heritage Version

²⁹ For you, Your Majesty, while you were on your bed, thoughts arose about things that will come after this, and the Revealer of Mysteries made known to you what will happen. ³⁰ But the reason that this mystery was revealed to me was not because I have more wisdom in me than any other living being. Rather, it was revealed to me so that the meaning could be made known to Your Majesty and so that you may know the thoughts of your heart.

³¹ You, Your Majesty, were looking, and there was a very great statue. That statue, which was large and extremely bright, was standing in front of you. Its appearance was frightening. ³² The statue looked like this: Its head was fine gold, its chest and its arms were silver, its abdomen and its thighs were bronze, ³³ its shins were iron, and its feet were partly iron and partly fired clay. ³⁴ You continued to watch until a stone was cut, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet that were iron and clay, and it smashed them. ³⁵ Then all at once the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed and became like the chaff on the threshing floors of summer. The wind carried them away, and no trace of them could be found. However, the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the entire earth. ³⁶ This is the dream.

So now we will interpret its meaning for Your Majesty. ³⁷ You, Your Majesty, are the king of kings to whom the God of Heaven has given a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. ³⁸ Wherever there are people, wild animals, and birds of the air, God has given them into your hand, and he has made you ruler over all of them. You are the head of gold.

³⁹ After you another kingdom will arise that will be inferior to yours. Then another kingdom, a third kingdom of bronze will arise. This kingdom will rule the entire earth. ⁴⁰ A fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron, since iron crushes and shatters everything. So, like iron that smashes, it will crush and smash all of these other kingdoms. ⁴¹ Because you saw feet and toes partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, this will be a divided kingdom. It will have some of the hardness of iron, because you saw iron mixed with common clay.^{[a] 42} What is more, the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay. This means that part of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. ⁴³ You saw iron mixed with common clay. This means that the different parts of the kingdom will be a mixture of different races of people,^[b] and they will not remain united to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

⁴⁴ In the days of those kings, the God of Heaven will establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and this kingdom will not be left to another race of people. It will crush and put an end to all of these kingdoms, but it will stand forever, ⁴⁵ just as you saw that a stone was cut from the mountain, but not by human hands, and it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to Your Majesty what will happen after this. The dream is sure, and its interpretation is certain.