Daniel 9:20-27

Living Bible

²⁰ Even while I was praying and confessing my sin and the sins of my people, desperately pleading with the Lord my God for Jerusalem, his holy mountain, ²¹ Gabriel, whom I had seen in the earlier vision, flew swiftly to me at the time of the evening sacrifice ²² and said to me, “Daniel, I am here to help you understand God’s plans. ²³ The moment you began praying a command was given. I am here to tell you what it was, for God loves you very much. Listen and try to understand the meaning of the vision that you saw!

²⁴ “The Lord has commanded 490 years^[a] of further punishment upon Jerusalem and your people. Then at last they will learn to stay away from sin, and their guilt will be cleansed; then the kingdom of everlasting righteousness will begin, and the Most Holy Place in the Temple will be rededicated, as the prophets have declared. ²⁵ Now listen! It will be 49 years plus 434 years^[b] from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One comes! Jerusalem’s streets and walls will be rebuilt despite the perilous times.

²⁶ “After this period of 434 years, the Anointed One will be killed, his kingdom still unrealized . . . and a king will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple. They will be overwhelmed as with a flood, and war and its miseries are decreed from that time to the very end. ²⁷ This king will make a seven-year treaty with the people, but after half that time, he will break his pledge and stop the Jews from all their sacrifices and their offerings; then, as a climax to all his terrible deeds, the Enemy shall utterly defile the sanctuary of God. But in God’s time and plan, his judgment will be poured out upon this Evil One.”