Daniel 2:31-45

Living Bible

³¹ “O king, you saw a huge and powerful statue of a man, shining brilliantly, frightening and terrible. ³² The head of the statue was made of purest gold, its chest and arms were of silver, its belly and thighs of brass, ³³ its legs of iron, its feet part iron and part clay. ³⁴ But as you watched, a Rock was cut from the mountainside^[a] by supernatural means. It came hurtling toward the statue and crushed the feet of iron and clay, smashing them to bits. ³⁵ Then the whole statue collapsed into a heap of iron, clay, brass, silver, and gold; its pieces were crushed as small as chaff, and the wind blew them all away. But the Rock that knocked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth.

³⁶ “That was the dream; now for its meaning:

³⁷ “Your Majesty, you are a king over many kings, for the God of heaven has given you your kingdom, power, strength, and glory. ³⁸ You rule the farthest provinces, and even animals and birds are under your control, as God decreed. You are that head of gold.

³⁹ “But after your kingdom has come to an end, another world power^[b] will arise to take your place. This empire will be inferior to yours. And after that kingdom has fallen, yet a third great power—represented by the bronze belly of the statue—will rise to rule the world. ⁴⁰ Following it, the fourth kingdom^[c] will be strong as iron—smashing, bruising, and conquering. ^41-42 The feet and toes you saw—part iron and part clay—show that later on, this kingdom will be divided. Some parts of it will be as strong as iron, and some as weak as clay. ⁴³ This mixture of iron with clay also shows that these kingdoms will try to strengthen themselves by forming alliances with each other through intermarriage of their rulers; but this will not succeed, for iron and clay don’t mix.

⁴⁴ “During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed; no one will ever conquer it. It will shatter all these kingdoms into nothingness, but it shall stand forever, indestructible. ⁴⁵ That is the meaning of the Rock cut from the mountain without human hands—the Rock that crushed to powder all the iron and brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold.

“Thus the great God has shown what will happen in the future, and this interpretation of your dream is as sure and certain as my description of it.”