Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Daniel: Stop what you are doing. It is not necessary to execute the wise men of Babylon. Instead, take me to the king, and I will tell him what the dream means.

Arioch (to Nebuchadnezzar): Mighty king, I have found a man from among the exiles from Judah who says he is able to tell the king what the dream means.

Nebuchadnezzar: So, Belteshazzar, are you able to tell me what I dreamed and what it all means?

Daniel: ²⁷ The Chaldeans were correct. There are no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or sorcerers in all the world who are able to reveal the mystery the king requested. ²⁸ But there is a God in heaven who can reveal such mysteries. The dream you dreamed and the visions you saw, King Nebuchadnezzar, unveil the future and disclose what will happen at the end of the age. Now I will tell you what you dreamed and the visions you saw as you slept in your bed.

²⁹ Good king, as you lay in your bed that night, thoughts about the future sprang up in your mind, and the revealer of all mysteries unveiled to you what is going to happen. ³⁰ I am here today, not because I have greater wisdom than any other in the land, but because God in His wisdom has revealed this mystery to me. It is God’s plan that the king knows the meaning of this dream and understands the thoughts that raced through your mind.

Daniel: ³¹ In your dream, you were looking, O king, and suddenly a great statue of what appeared to be a man stood before you. It was enormous in size, shining bright as the sun at midday. Its appearance was frightening. ³² The head of the statue was fashioned of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its trunk and thighs of bronze, ³³ its calves of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. ³⁴ As you were watching, a special stone was quarried and cut, but not by human hands. The divinely hewn stone began to move; it struck the statue on its iron and clay feet and smashed them to pieces. ³⁵ Suddenly the entire statue collapsed—its iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were all broken into pieces and turned to dust, like the chaff carried away by the wind from the threshing floors in summer. Soon not a trace of the statue was left. But the divinely hewn stone that struck the statue became a mountain that filled the whole earth. ³⁶ That, good king, was your dream.

If you allow, we will now tell you what it all means. ³⁷ You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has conferred upon you the kingdom you now rule, along with the power and strength and glory to subdue it. ³⁸ He has placed all people everywhere and all the beasts that roam the fields and all the birds that fly in the sky under your control. He has made you ruler over them all: you are the head of gold. ³⁹ After your reign is over, another kingdom will rise, but its glory will never match yours. This lesser kingdom is the chest and arms of silver. When that kingdom has come and gone, a third and even less majestic empire will rise, which will rule over the whole earth. This kingdom is the trunk and thighs of bronze. ⁴⁰ Then, when those days are past, a fourth kingdom will come to power with the strength of iron, though lacking in grandeur. Just as iron breaks and shatters everything, so this kingdom will break and shatter all these former realms. ^41-42 But as you saw in your vision, this kingdom will be divided, with feet and toes made of both clay and iron. The strength of iron runs through it, but as the toes are made partly of iron and partly of clay, the kingdom, too, will be partly strong and partly fragile. ⁴³ Your dream envisions that this kingdom of iron mixed with clay will be of peoples mixed but not united, the kingdoms joined in the bonds of marriage but not true allies, for iron and clay form no alloy.

⁴⁴ In the days when these kings of iron and clay reign, the God of heaven will set up another kingdom, a kingdom that can never be destroyed, a kingdom that will never be ruled by others. It will crush all the other kingdoms and bring them to an end. This kingdom will last forever. ⁴⁵ It will be as you have seen in your dream, that a special stone quarried and cut from the mountain—but not by human hands—will crush the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The great God, the one True God of heaven, has revealed to the king what will happen in the future. You can be sure that the dream and its meaning are true.

Nebuchadnezzar: ⁴⁷ I am now certain that your God is the God of all gods, the Lord of all kings, and the Revealer of mysteries, for unlike the other wise men in my service, you were able to reveal to me this mystery. You told me not only what I dreamed but what it all means.

Jesus (crying out before the people): ⁴⁴ Anyone who believes in Me is not placing his faith in Me, but in the One who sent Me here. ⁴⁵ If one sees Me, he sees the One who sent Me. ⁴⁶ I am here to bring light in this world, freeing everyone who believes in Me from the darkness that blinds him. ⁴⁷ If anyone listening to My teachings chooses to ignore them, so be it: I have come to liberate the world, not to judge it. ⁴⁸ However, those who reject Me and My teachings will be judged: in the last day, My words will be their judge ⁴⁹ because I am not speaking of My own volition and from My own authority. The Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to say and speak. ⁵⁰ I know His command is eternal life, so every word I utter originates in Him.