³⁶ “This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. ^37 (A)You, O king, are a king of kings. ^(B)For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; ^38 (C)and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—^(D)you are this head of gold. ³⁹ But after you shall arise ^(E)another kingdom ^(F)inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. ⁴⁰ And ^(G)the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. ⁴¹ Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. ⁴² And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, ^(H)so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly ^[a]fragile. ⁴³ As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

³ And four great beasts ^(A)came up from the sea, each different from the other. ⁴ The first was ^(B)like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a ^(C)man’s heart was given to it.

^5 (D)“And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’

⁶ “After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had ^(E)four heads, and dominion was given to it.

⁷ “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, ^(F)a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, ^(G)and it had ten horns. ⁸ I was considering the horns, and ^(H)there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes ^(I)of a man, ^(J)and a mouth speaking ^[a]pompous words.