Daniel 2:38–45

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.”