¹In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams; his breath was troubled, and his sleep was gone from him.

²The king ordered the diviners, the conjurers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to be summoned to declare his dreams to the king; and they came and stood before the king.

³The king said to them, “I dreamed a dream, and my breath is troubled to know the dream.”

⁴The Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic: “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will declare its interpretation.”

⁵The king answered and said to the Chaldeans: “The word from me is sure. If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be made into pieces, and your houses will be made a refuse heap.”

⁶But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a reward and great honor. So declare to me the dream and its interpretation.”

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

⁸The king answered and said: “I know for certain that you are buying time, because you saw that the word from me is sure,

⁹that if you do not make known to me the dream, your decree is one. You have agreed together to speak a lying and rotten word before me, until the time changes. So tell me the dream, and I will know that you will declare to me its interpretation.”

¹⁰The Chaldeans answered before the king and said: “There is no man on the dry land who can declare the king’s matter, because no king, however great and powerful, has asked a matter like this of any magician or conjurer or Chaldean.

¹¹The matter which the king is asking is difficult, and there is no other who will declare it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling place is not with flesh.”

¹²Because of this the king was angry and furious, very much, and he said to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

¹³And the decree went out, and the wise men were being killed; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to be killed.

¹⁴Then Daniel replied with counsel and judgment to Arioch, chief of the king’s guardsmen, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon.

¹⁵He answered and said to Arioch the rule of the king, To what is the decree harsh from before the king? Then Arioch knew the matter to Daniel.

¹⁶Daniel went in and asked the king that he would give him time, so as to declare the interpretation to the king.

¹⁷Then Daniel went to his house, and to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah his gang he knew the matter,

¹⁸and to seek mercies from before the God of the heavens over this mystery, that Daniel and his gang will not perish with the rest of the wise of Babylon.

¹⁹Then to Daniel in the vision of the night the mystery was revealed; then Daniel blessed the God of the heavens.

²⁰Daniel answered and said: “May the name of God be blessed from forever to forever, for wisdom and might are his.

²¹He changes the set times and the appointed times; he takes away kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who know discernment.

²²He uncovers the deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.

²³To you, God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might; and now you have made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the matter of the king.

²⁴Because of this, Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said to him: “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king, and I will declare the interpretation to the king.”

²⁵Then Arioch in haste brought Daniel in before the king and said thus to him, that I have found a man from the sons of the exile of Judah, who will make known the interpretation to the king.

²⁶The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar: “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I saw, and its interpretation?”

²⁷Daniel answered before the king and said: “The secret that the king asks about, wise men, conjurers, magicians, and astrologers are not able to declare to the king.”

²⁸Yet there is a God in the heavens revealing mysteries, and he knew to the king Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter of the days. Your dream and the visions of your head over your bed are this:

²⁹You, O king, your thoughts on your bed came up: what will be after this; and the one who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be.

³⁰As for me, this secret was not revealed to me through any wisdom that is in me beyond all the living, but so that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and you may know the thoughts of your heart.

³¹You, O king, were looking, and look: one great image. This image was great, and its brightness surpassing, standing before you; and its appearance was fearsome.

³²This is the image: its head was of fine gold, its chest and its arms of silver, its belly and its loins of bronze,

³³its legs of iron; its feet, part of them of iron and part of them of clay.

³⁴You kept looking until a stone was cut out, not by hands, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them.

³⁵Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them off, and no place was found for them. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled all the land.

³⁶This is the dream; we will tell its interpretation before the king.

³⁷You, king, are the king of the kings, to whom the God of the heavens gave the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory;

³⁸and wherever the sons of humankind live, the animals of the field and the birds of the skies, he has given into your hand and made you ruler over all of them. You are the head of gold.

³⁹After you another kingdom will arise, lower than you; and a third kingdom, another, of bronze, which will rule over all the land.

⁴⁰And a fourth kingdom will be strong like iron, because iron shatters and crushes everything; and like iron that smashes all these, it will shatter and smash.

⁴¹And what you saw: the feet and the toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron—a divided kingdom it will be; yet some of the firmness of iron will be in it, since you saw iron mixed with the clods of clay.

⁴²And the toes of the feet, partly of iron and partly of clay: part of the kingdom will be strong, and part of it will be brittle.

⁴³And as for what you saw, the iron mixed with pottery clay: they will mix with one another in the offspring of humankind, but they will not cling, this to that, even as iron does not mix with pottery.

⁴⁴And in the days of those kings, the God of the heavens will set up a kingdom which to forevers will not be destroyed; and the kingdom to other peoples she will not leave; she will crush and put an end to all those kingdoms, and she will set up to forevers.

⁴⁵Since you saw that a stone was cut out from the mountain, not by hands, and it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation trustworthy.

⁴⁶Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and bowed down to Daniel, and he commanded that an offering and soothing offerings be poured out for him.

⁴⁷The king answered Daniel and said, Truly, your God is the God of gods and the lord of kings and the one who reveals secrets, since you were able to reveal this secret.

⁴⁸Then the king made Daniel great, gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over all the province of Babylon, and chief of the prefects over all the wise men of Babylon.

⁴⁹And Daniel asked of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego over the administration of the province of Babylon; and Daniel was in the gate of the king.