Daniel 2:38–45

³⁸and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, ^uthe beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are ^vthe head of gold. ^39wAnother kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom ^vof bronze, ^xwhich shall rule over all the earth. ⁴⁰And ^ythere shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron ^zbreaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall ^zbreak and crush all these. ⁴¹And as you saw ^athe feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the ^yfirmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. ⁴²And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage,³ but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. ⁴⁴And in the days of those kings ^bthe God of heaven will set up ^ca kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. ^dIt shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and ^cit shall stand forever, ⁴⁵just as ^eyou saw that ^fa stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that ^dit broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A ^ggreat God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”