Daniel 2

¹ And in the second year of the reign of king Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, with which his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him.

² And the king commanded to call to the horoscopists, and to the conjurers, and to the sorcerers, and to the Chaldeans, to tell to the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

³ And the king said to them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

⁴ And the Chaldeans spoke to the king [in] Aramaic, O king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream, and we will reveal the meaning.

⁵ The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing has gone from me. If you will not make known to me the dream, with its meaning, you will be made into [mere] members, and your houses shall be made an outhouse.

⁶ But if you make known the dream and its meaning, you shall receive gifts and a present and great honor from me. Therefore reveal to me the dream and its meaning.

⁷ They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will reveal its meaning.

⁸ The king answered and said, For I know that you surely want to gain time, because you see the thing is gone from me.

⁹ But if you will not make the dream known to me, [there is] only one judgment for you. For you have prepared lying and deceiving words to speak before me, until the time has changed. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can reveal to me its meaning.

¹⁰ The Chaldeans answered before the king and said, There is not a man on the earth who can reveal the king's matter, because not any king, lord, nor ruler has asked such a thing from any horoscopist or conjurer or Chaldean.

¹¹ And [it is] a rare thing that the king asks, and there is no other who can reveal it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.

¹² For this cause the king was enraged and angered, and commanded all the wise men of Babylon to be destroyed.

¹³ And the law went out that the wise men should be killed. And they sought Daniel and his fellows to be killed.

¹⁴ Then Daniel answered [with] counsel and insight to Arioch the chief of the king's executioners, who had gone forth to kill the wise men of Babylon.

¹⁵ He answered and said to Arioch the king's captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.

¹⁶ Then Daniel went in and asked of the king that he would give him time, and that he would make known the meaning to the king.

¹⁷ Then Daniel went to his house and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions,

¹⁸ that they might pray for the mercies of God in Heaven concerning this secret, that Daniel and his companions should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

¹⁹ Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. And Daniel blessed the God of Heaven.

²⁰ Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His.

²¹ And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.

²² He reveals the deep and secret things; He knows what [is] in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.

²³ I thank You, and praise You, O God of my fathers, who has given me wisdom and might, and have made known to me now what we asked of You. For You have now made known to us the king's matter.

²⁴ Then Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had chosen to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said this to him; Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king, and I will declare the meaning to the king.

²⁵ Then Arioch quickly brought Daniel in before the king, and said this to him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah who will make the meaning known to the king.

²⁶ The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name [was] Belteshazzar, Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen, and its meaning?

²⁷ Daniel answered before the king and said, The secret which the king has demanded cannot be shown to the king by the wise men, the conjurers, the horoscopists, or the fortune-tellers.

²⁸ But there is a God in Heaven who reveals secrets and makes known to King Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed [are] these.

²⁹ As for you, O king, your thoughts came on your bed, what should happen after this. And He who reveals secrets makes known to you what shall happen.

³⁰ But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for [any] wisdom that I have more than any living man, but so that the meaning might be known to the king, and that you might know the thoughts of your heart.

³¹ You, O king, were seeing. And, behold! A great image! That great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before you. And its form [was] dreadful.

³² This image's head [was] of fine gold; his breast and his arms [were] of silver; his belly and his thighs [were] of bronze;

³³ his legs [were] of iron; his feet [were] part of iron and part of clay.

³⁴ You watched until a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image upon its feet [which were] of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces.

³⁵ Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were broken to pieces together. And they became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

³⁶ This [is] the dream. And we will tell its meaning before the king.

³⁷ You, O king, [are] a king of kings. For the God of Heaven has given you a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.

³⁸ And wherever the sons of men, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens live, He has given [them] into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold.

³⁹ And after you shall arise another kingdom lower than you, and another third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.

⁴⁰ And the fourth kingdom shall be [as] strong as iron. Since iron crushes and smashes all things; and as the iron that shatters all these, it will crush and shatter.

⁴¹ And as to that which you saw: the feet and toes, part of potters' clay and part of iron; [the] kingdom shall be divided. But there shall be in it the strength of the iron, because you saw the iron mixed with miry clay.

⁴² And [as] the toes of the feet [were] part of iron and part of clay, [so] the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.

⁴³ And as you saw iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mix themselves with the seed of men. But they shall not cling to one another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

⁴⁴ And in the days of these kings, the God of Heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other peoples, but it shall crush and destroy all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

⁴⁵ Because you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it crushes the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what shall occur after this. And the dream is] certain, and its meaning is sure.

⁴⁶ Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and worshiped Daniel, and he commanded to offer an offering and incense to him.

⁴⁷ The king answered Daniel and said, It is true that your God [is] a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, since you could reveal this secret.

⁴⁸ Then the king made Daniel great, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over all the province of Babylon, and chief of the prefects over all the wise men of Babylon.

⁴⁹ And Daniel asked the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel [sat] in the gate of the king.