³ Four great beasts,^(A) each different from the others, came up out of the sea.

The Beast out of the Sea

13 The dragon^[a] stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea.^(A) It had ten horns and seven heads,^(B) with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.^(C)

¹⁷ ‘The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth.

⁴ “The first was like a lion,^(A) and it had the wings of an eagle.^(B) I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it.

⁵ “And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’^(C)

⁶ “After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard.^(D) And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule.

⁷ “After that, in my vision^(E) at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron^(F) teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled^(G) underfoot whatever was left.^(H) It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.^(I)

⁸ “While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little^(J) one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being^(K) and a mouth that spoke boastfully.^(L)

³² The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, ³³ its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.