²“Now I will announce the truth to you. Three more kings shall arise in Persia. The fourth shall be far richer than all of them, and when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. ³Then a warrior king shall arise who shall rule with great dominion and take action as he pleases.^* ⁴And while still rising in power, his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven but not to his posterity nor according to the dominion with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be uprooted and go to others besides these.^*

⁵“Then the king of the south shall grow strong, but one of his officers shall grow stronger than he and shall rule a realm greater than his own realm. ⁶After some years they shall make an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to ratify the agreement. But she shall not retain her power, and his offspring shall not endure. She shall be given up, she and her attendants and her child and the one who supported her.

“In those times^* ⁷a branch from her roots shall rise up in his place. He shall come against the army and enter the fortress of the king of the north, and he shall take action against them and prevail.^* ⁸Even their gods, with their idols and with their precious vessels of silver and gold, he shall carry off to Egypt as spoils of war. For some years he shall refrain from attacking the king of the north;^* ⁹then the latter shall invade the realm of the king of the south but will return to his own land.

¹⁰“His sons shall wage war and assemble a multitude of great forces that shall advance like a flood and pass through and again shall carry the war as far as his fortress.^* ¹¹Moved with rage, the king of the south shall go out and do battle against the king of the north, who shall muster a great multitude, but the multitude shall be given over to his hand.^* ¹²When the multitude has been carried off, his heart shall be exalted, and he shall overthrow tens of thousands, but he shall not prevail. ¹³For the king of the north shall again raise a multitude larger than the former, and after some years^k he shall advance with a great army and abundant supplies.^*

¹⁴“In those times many shall rise against the king of the south. The lawless among your own people shall lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they shall fail. ¹⁵Then the king of the north shall come and throw up siegeworks and take a well-fortified city. And the forces of the south shall not stand, not even his picked troops, for there shall be no strength to resist.^* ¹⁶But he who comes against him shall take the actions he pleases, and no one shall withstand him. He shall take a position in the beautiful land, and all of it shall be in his power.^* ¹⁷He shall set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom. He shall make peace with him and shall give him a woman in marriage, in order to destroy the kingdom,^l but it shall not succeed or be to his advantage.^* ¹⁸Afterward he shall turn to the coastlands and shall capture many, but a commander shall put an end to his insolence; indeed,^m he shall turn his insolence back upon him.^* ¹⁹Then he shall turn back toward the fortresses of his own land, but he shall stumble and fall and shall not be found.^*

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Footnotes

kHeb and at the end of the times years
lHeb it
mMeaning of Heb uncertain

Cross references

*Dan 5:31; 9:1
*Dan 8:4, 5, 21
*Ezek 37:9; Dan 8:8, 22; Zech 2:6; Rev 7:1
*vv 13, 15, 40
*vv 19, 38, 39
*Isa 37:19; 46:1, 2; Jer 43:12, 13
*v 7; Isa 8:8; Jer 46:7, 8; Dan 9:26
*vv 5, 10, 13; Dan 8:7
*Dan 4:16; 12:7
*Jer 6:6; Ezek 4:2; 17:17
*vv 3, 36, 41, 45; Josh 1:5; Dan 8:4, 7
*2 Kings 12:17; Ezek 4:3, 7
*Isa 66:19; Jer 31:10; Hos 12:14
*Job 20:8; Ps 27:2; Ezek 26:21