Daniel 2:38–45

³⁸Wherever people live—or wild animals, or birds of the sky—he has handed them over to you and made you ruler over them all.^h You are the head of gold.

³⁹“After you, there will arise another kingdom, inferior to yours, and then another, a third kingdom, of bronze, which will rule the whole earth.^{i 40}A fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron; for iron crushes and shatters everything, and like iron that smashes, it will crush and smash all the others.^{Aj 41}You saw the feet and toes, partly of a potter’s fired clay and partly of iron—it will be a divided kingdom, though some of the strength of iron will be in it. You saw the iron mixed with clay, ⁴²and that the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly fired clay—part of the kingdom will be strong, and part will be brittle. ⁴³You saw the iron mixed with clay—the peoples will mix with one another^B but will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with fired clay.

⁴⁴“In the days of those kings, the God of the heavens will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed,^k and this kingdom will not be left to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms^l and bring them to an end, but will itself endure forever. ⁴⁵You saw a stone^m break off from the mountain without a hand touching it,^Cn and it crushed the iron, bronze, fired clay, silver, and gold. The great God has told the king what will happen in the future.^o The dream is certain, and its interpretation reliable.”