Daniel 11:1–19

11He is^x responsible for helping and defending me. ²And what I am now going to tell you is true.”

The Kingdoms Of Egypt and Syria

The angel said, “Three more kings will rule over Persia, followed by a fourth, who will be richer than all the others. At the height of his power and wealth he will challenge the kingdom of Greece.

³“Then a heroic king will appear. He will rule over a huge empire and do whatever he wants. ⁴But at the height of his power his empire will break up and be divided into four parts. Kings not descended from him will rule in his place, but they will not have the power that he had.

⁵“The king of Egypt will be strong. One of his generals, however, will be even stronger and rule a greater kingdom. ⁶After a number of years the king of Egypt will make an alliance with the king of Syria and give him his daughter in marriage. But the alliance will not last, and she, her husband, her child,^y and the servants who went with her will all be killed. ⁷Soon afterwards, one of her relatives will become king. He will attack the army of the king of Syria, enter their fortress, and defeat them. ⁸He will carry back to Egypt the images of their gods and the articles of gold and silver dedicated to those gods. After several years of peace ⁹the king of Syria will invade Egypt, but he will be forced to retreat.

¹⁰“The sons of the king of Syria will prepare for war and gather a large army. One of them will sweep on like a flood and attack an enemy fortress. ¹¹In his anger the king of Egypt will go to war against the king of Syria and capture his huge army. ¹²He will be proud of his victory and of the many soldiers he has killed, but he will not continue to be victorious.

¹³“The king of Syria will go back and gather a larger army than he had before. When the proper time comes, he will return with a large, well-equipped army. ¹⁴Then many people will rebel against the king of Egypt. And some of the violent from your nation, Daniel, will rebel because of a vision they have seen, but they will be defeated. ¹⁵So the king of Syria will lay siege to a fortified city and capture it. The soldiers of Egypt will not continue to fight; even the best of them will not have enough strength. ¹⁶The Syrian invader will do with them as he pleases, without opposition. He will stand in the Promised Land and have it completely in his power.

¹⁷“The king of Syria will plan an expedition, using his whole army. Then, in order to destroy his enemy’s kingdom, he will make an alliance with him and offer him his daughter^z in marriage; but his plan will not succeed. ¹⁸After that he will attack the nations by the sea and conquer many of them. But a foreign leader will defeat him and put an end to his arrogance; indeed he will turn the arrogance of Syria’s king back on him.^{a 19}The king will return to the fortresses of his own land, but he will be defeated, and that will be the end of him.