³⁶ “This was the dream, and now we will tell its interpretation to the king. ³⁷ You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power and the might and the glory, ³⁸ and also human beings wherever they dwell,^[a] the animals of the field and the birds^[b] of heaven^[c]—he has given into your hand and made you ruler over all of them—you are the head of gold. ³⁹ And after you another kingdom inferior to yours will arise, and another third kingdom of bronze that will rule over the whole earth. ⁴⁰ And a fourth kingdom will be strong as iron, and just as^[d] iron crushes and smashes everything,^[e] and as iron shatters all of these other metals, so it will crush and it will shatter these nations. ⁴¹ And just as^[f] you saw the feet and the toes, partly potter’s clay^[g] and partly iron,^[h] it will be a divided kingdom; and some hardness^[i] of the iron will be in it, just as^[j] you have seen the iron mixed with the wet clay. ⁴² And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so part of the kingdom will be strong and partly brittle.^{[k] 43} And in that you saw the iron was mixed with wet clay, so they will mix in marriage^[l] and they will not cling to one another,^[m] just as iron does not mix with clay.