³⁶ “This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.^{(A) 37} Your Majesty, you are the king of kings.^(B) The God of heaven has given you dominion^(C) and power and might and glory; ³⁸ in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all.^(D) You are that head of gold.

³⁹ “After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth.^{(E) 40} Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others.^{(F) 41} Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. ⁴² As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³ And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

⁴⁴ “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush^(G) all those kingdoms^(H) and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.^{(I) 45} This is the meaning of the vision of the rock^(J) cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands^(K)—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.

“The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future.^(L) The dream is true^(M) and its interpretation is trustworthy.”

Daniel’s Dream of Four Beasts

7 In the first year of Belshazzar^(A) king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions^(B) passed through his mind^(C) as he was lying in bed.^(D) He wrote^(E) down the substance of his dream.

² Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven^(F) churning up the great sea. ³ Four great beasts,^(G) each different from the others, came up out of the sea.

⁴ “The first was like a lion,^(H) and it had the wings of an eagle.^(I) 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!’^(J)

⁶ “After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard.^(K) 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^(L) at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron^(M) teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled^(N) underfoot whatever was left.^(O) It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.^(P)