Daniel 2:4–7:28

⁴Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in ^1aAramaic: “^bO king, live forever! ^cTell the dream to your servants, and we will declare the interpretation.”

⁵The king replied to the Chaldeans, “¹The command from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be ^2atorn limb from limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap.

⁶“But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me ^agifts and a reward and great honor; therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation.”

⁷They answered a second time and said, “Let the king ^atell the dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.”

⁸The king replied, “I know for certain that you are ¹bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that ²the command from me is firm,

⁹that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only ^aone ¹decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt ²words before me until the ³situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may ^bknow that you can declare to me its interpretation.”

¹⁰The Chaldeans answered ¹the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter ²for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any ^3amagician, conjurer or Chaldean.

¹¹“Moreover, the thing which the king demands is ¹difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it ²to the king except ^agods, whose ^bdwelling place is not with mortal flesh.”

¹²Because of this the king became ^aindignant and very furious and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

¹³So the ¹decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they looked for ^aDaniel and his friends to ²kill them.

¹⁴Then Daniel replied with discretion and discernment to ^aArioch, the captain of the king’s ¹bodyguard, who had gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon;

¹⁵he said to Arioch, the king’s commander, “For what reason is the ¹decree from the king so ²urgent?” Then Arioch informed Daniel about the matter.

¹⁶So Daniel went in and requested of the king that he would ¹give him time, in order that he might declare the interpretation to the king.

¹⁷Then Daniel went to his house and informed his friends, ^aHananiah, Mishael and Azariah, about the matter,

¹⁸so that they might ^arequest compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends would not be ^bdestroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

The Secret Is Revealed to Daniel

¹⁹Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night ^avision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven;

²⁰Daniel said,

“Let the name of God be ^ablessed forever and ever,

For ^bwisdom and power belong to Him.

²¹“It is He who ^achanges the times and the epochs;

He ^bremoves kings and ¹establishes kings;

He gives ^cwisdom to wise men

And knowledge to ²men of understanding.

²²“It is He who ^areveals the profound and hidden things;

^bHe knows what is in the darkness,

And the ^clight dwells with Him.

²³“To You, O ^aGod of my fathers, I give thanks and praise,

For You have given me ^bwisdom and power;

Even now You have made known to me what we ^crequested of You,

For You have made known to us the king’s matter.”

²⁴Therefore, Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon; he went and spoke to him as follows: “^aDo not destroy the wise men of Babylon! Take me ¹into the king’s presence, and I will declare the interpretation to the king.”

²⁵Then Arioch hurriedly ^abrought Daniel ¹into the king’s presence and spoke to him as follows: “I have found a man among the ^2bexiles from Judah who can make the interpretation known to the king!”

²⁶The king said to Daniel, whose name was ^aBelteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation?”

²⁷Daniel answered before the king and said, “As for the mystery about which the king has inquired, neither ^awise men, conjurers, ¹magicians nor diviners are able to declare it to the king.

²⁸“However, there is a ^aGod in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the ^1blatter days. This was your dream and the ^cvisions ²in your mind while on your bed.

²⁹“As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts ¹turned to what would take place ²in the future; and ^aHe who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place.

³⁰“But as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me for any ^awisdom ¹residing in me more than in any other living man, but for the purpose of making the interpretation known to the king, and that you may ²understand the ^bthoughts of your ³mind.

The King’s Dream

³¹“You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and ¹of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was ^aawesome.

³²“The ^ahead of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze,

³³its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

³⁴“You ¹continued looking until a ^astone was cut out ^bwithout hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and ^ccrushed them.

³⁵“Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed ¹all at the same time and became ^alike chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that ^bnot a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great ^cmountain and filled the whole earth.

The Interpretation—Babylon the First Kingdom

³⁶“This was the dream; now we will tell ^aits interpretation before the king.

³⁷“You, O king, are the ^aking of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the ¹kingdom, the ^bpower, the strength and the glory;

³⁸and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the ^abeasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold.

Medo-Persia and Greece

³⁹“After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.

Rome

⁴⁰“Then there will be a ^afourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.

⁴¹“In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with ¹common clay.

⁴²“As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle.

⁴³“And in that you saw the iron mixed with ¹common clay, they will combine with one another ²in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.

The Divine Kingdom

⁴⁴“In the days of those kings the ^aGod of heaven will ^bset up a ^ckingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be ¹left for another people; it will ^dcrush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.

⁴⁵“Inasmuch as you saw that a ^astone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the ^bgreat God has made known to the king what ^cwill take place ¹in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”

Daniel Promoted

⁴⁶Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did ^ahomage to Daniel, and gave orders to present to him an offering and ^1bfragrant incense.

⁴⁷The king answered Daniel and said, “Surely ^ayour God is a ^bGod of gods and a Lord of kings and a ^crevealer of mysteries, since you have been able to reveal this mystery.”

⁴⁸Then the king ^1apromoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts, and he made him ruler over the whole ^bprovince of Babylon and chief ²prefect over all the wise men of Babylon.

⁴⁹And Daniel made request of the king, and he ^aappointed ^bShadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego over the administration of the province of Babylon, while Daniel was at the king’s ^1ccourt.

Chapter 3

The King’s Golden Image

¹Nebuchadnezzar the king made an ^aimage of gold, the height of which was sixty ¹cubits and its width six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the ^bprovince of Babylon.

²Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent word to assemble the ^asatraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

³Then the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces were assembled for the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

⁴Then the herald loudly proclaimed: “To you ¹the command is given, ^aO peoples, nations and men of every ²language,

⁵that at the moment you ^ahear the sound of the horn, flute, ¹lyre, ²trigon, ³psaltery, bagpipe and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up.

⁶“But whoever does not fall down and worship shall ¹immediately be ^acast into the midst of a ^bfurnace of blazing fire.”

⁷Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, ¹lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations and men of every ²language fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

Worship of the Image Refused

⁸For this reason at that time certain ^aChaldeans came forward and ^1bbrought charges against the Jews.

⁹They responded and said to Nebuchadnezzar the king: “^aO king, live forever!

¹⁰“You, O king, have ^amade a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, flute, ¹lyre, trigon, psaltery, and bagpipe and all kinds of music, is to ^bfall down and worship the…