¹ And as for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede I was on his side to make his position safe and make him strong.

² And now I will make clear to you what is true. There are still three kings to come in Persia, and the fourth will have much greater wealth than all of them: and when he has become strong through his wealth, he will put his forces in motion against all the kingdoms of Greece.

³ And a strong king will come to power, ruling with great authority and doing whatever is his pleasure.

⁴ And when he has become strong, his kingdom will be broken and parted to the four winds of heaven; but not to his offspring, for it will be uprooted; and his kingdom will be for the others and not for these: but not with the same authority as his.

⁵ And the king of the south will be strong, but one of his captains will be stronger than he and will be ruler; and his rule will be a great rule.

⁶ And at the end of years they will be joined together; and the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she will not keep the strength of her arm; and his offspring will not keep their place; but she will be uprooted, with those who were the cause of her coming, and her son, and he who took her in those times.

⁷ But out of a branch from her roots one will come up to take his place, who will come against the army, forcing his way into the strong place of the king of the north, and he will take them in hand and overcome them:

⁸ And their gods and their metal images and their fair vessels of silver and gold he will take away into the south; and for some years he will keep away from the king of the north.

⁹ And he will come into the kingdom of the king of the south, but he will go back to his land.

¹⁰ And his son will make war, and will get together an army of great forces, and he will make an attack on him, overflowing and going past: and he will again take the war even to his strong place.

¹¹ And the king of the south will be moved with wrath, and will come out and make war on him, on this same king of the north: and he will get together a great army, but the army will be given into his hand.

¹² And the army will be taken away, and his heart will be uplifted: he will be the cause of the downfall of tens of thousands, but he will not be strong.

¹³ And again the king of the north will get together an army greater than the first; and he will make an attack on him at the end of years, with a great army and much wealth.

¹⁴ In those times, a number will take up arms against the king of the south: and the children of the violent among your people will be lifting themselves up to make the vision come true; but it will be their downfall.

¹⁵ So the king of the north will come, and put up earthworks and take a well-armed town: and the forces of the king of the south will make an attempt to keep their position, even the best of his army, but they will not have strength to do so.

¹⁶ And he who comes against him will do his pleasure, and no one will be able to keep his place before him: he will take up his position in the beautiful land and in his hand there will be destruction.

¹⁷ And it will be his purpose to come with the strength of all his kingdom, but in place of this he will make an agreement with him; and he will give him the daughter of women to send destruction on it; but this will not take place or come about.

¹⁸ After this, his face will be turned to the islands, and he will take a number of them: but a chief, by his destruction, will put an end to the shame offered by him; and more than this, he will make his shame come back on him.

¹⁹ Then his face will be turned to the strong places of his land: but his way will be stopped, causing his downfall, and he will not be seen again.

²⁰ Then his place will be taken by one who will send out a man with the glory of a king to get wealth together; but after a short time destruction will overtake him, but not in wrath or in the fight.

²¹ And his place will be taken by a low person, to whom the honour of the kingdom had not been given: but he will come in time of peace and will get the kingdom by fair words.

²² And his forces will be completely taken away from before him and broken; and even the ruler of the agreement will have the same fate.

²³ And from the time when they make an agreement with him, he will be working falsely: for he will take up arms suddenly with a small force,

²⁴ Against fertile places, and will make waste a part of the country; and he will do what his fathers have not done, or his fathers' fathers; he will make distribution among them of goods taken in war and by force, and of property: he will even make designs against the strong places for a time.

²⁵ And he will put in motion his power and his strength against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south will go to war with a very great and strong army: but he will be forced to give way, because of their designs against him;

²⁶ And his fears will overcome him and be the cause of his downfall, and his army will come to complete destruction, and a great number will be put to the sword.

²⁷ And as for these two kings, their hearts will be fixed on doing evil and they will say false words at one table; but it will come to nothing: for the end will be at the time fixed.

²⁸ And he will go back to his land with great wealth; and his heart will be against the holy agreement; and he will do his pleasure and go back to his land.

²⁹ At the time fixed he will come back and come into the south; but in the later time it will not be as it was before.

³⁰ For those who go out from the west will come against him, and he will be in fear and will go back, full of wrath against the holy agreement; and he will do his pleasure: and he will go back and be united with those who have given up the holy agreement.

³¹ And armies sent by him will take up their position and they will make unclean the holy place, even the strong place, and take away the regular burned offering and put in its place an unclean thing causing fear.

³² And those who do evil against the agreement will be turned to sin by his fair words: but the people who have knowledge of their God will be strong and do well.

³³ And those who are wise among the people will be the teachers of the mass of the people: but they will come to their downfall by the sword and by the flame, being made prisoners and undergoing loss for a long time.

³⁴ Now at the time of their downfall they will have a little help, but numbers will be joined to them in the town, and in their separate heritages.

³⁵ And some of those who are wise will have wisdom in testing themselves and making themselves clean, till the time of the end: for it is still for the fixed time.

³⁶ And the king will do his pleasure; he will put himself on high, lifting himself over every god, and saying things to be wondered at against the God of gods; and all will be well for him till the wrath is complete; for what has been purposed will be done.

³⁷ He will have no respect for the gods of his fathers or for the god desired by women; he will have no respect for any god: for he will put himself on high over all.

³⁸ But in place of this he will give honour to the god of armed places, and to a god of whom his fathers had no knowledge he will give honour with gold and silver and jewels and things to be desired.

³⁹ And he will make use of the people of a strange god to keep his strongest places; to those whom he takes note of he will give high honour: and he will make them rulers over the mass of the people, and will make division of the land for a price.

⁴⁰ And at the time of the end, the king of the south will make an attack on him: and the king of the north will come against him like a storm-wind, with war-carriages and horsemen and numbers of ships; and he will go through many lands like overflowing waters.

⁴¹ And he will come into the beautiful land, and tens of thousands will be overcome: but these will be kept from falling into his hands: Edom and Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon.

⁴² And his hand will be stretched out on the countries: and the land of the south will not be safe from him.

⁴³ But he will have power over the stores of gold and silver, and over all the valued things of the south: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians will be at his steps.

⁴⁴ But he will be troubled by news from the east and from the north; and he will go out in great wrath, to send destruction on, and put an end to, great numbers.

⁴⁵ He will put the tents of his great house between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain: but he will come to his end with no helper.

¹ In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream, and visions came into his head on his bed: then he put the dream in writing.

² I had a vision by night, and saw the four winds of heaven violently moving the great sea.

³ And four great beasts came up from the sea, different one from another.

⁴ The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings; while I was watching its wings were pulled off, and it was lifted up from the earth and placed on two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

⁵ And I saw another beast, like a bear, and it was lifted up on one side, and three side-bones were in its mouth, between its teeth: and they said to it, Up! take much flesh.

⁶ After this I saw another beast, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings like those of a bird; and the beast had four heads, and the power of a ruler was given to it.

⁷ After this, in my vision of the night, I saw a fourth beast, a thing causing fear and very troubling, full of power and very strong; and it had great iron teeth: it took its food, crushing some of it to bits and stamping down the rest with its feet: it was different from all the beasts before it; and it had ten horns.

⁸ I was watching the horns with care, and I saw another coming up among them, a little one, before which three of the first horns were pulled up by the roots: and there were eyes like a man's eyes in this horn, and a mouth saying great things.

⁹ I went on looking till the seats of kings were placed, and one like a very old man took his seat: his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like clean wool; his seat was flames of fire and its wheels burning fire.

¹⁰ A stream of fire was flowing and coming out from before him: a thousand thousands were his servants, and ten thousand times ten thousand were in their places before him: the judge was seated and the books were open.

¹¹ Then I saw--because of the voice of the great words which the horn said--I saw till the beast was put to death, and its body was given to destruction, and the beast was given to the burning of fire.

¹² As for the rest of the beasts, their authority was taken away: but they let them go on living for a measure of time.

¹³ I saw in visions of the night, and there was coming with the clouds of heaven one like a man, and he came to the one who was very old, and they took him near before him.

¹⁴ And to him was given authority and glory and a kingdom; and all peoples, nations, and languages were his servants: his authority is an eternal authority which will not come to an end, and his kingdom is one which will not come to destruction.

¹⁵ As for me, Daniel, my spirit was pained because of this, and the visions of my head were troubling me.

¹⁶ I came near to one of those who were waiting there, questioning him about what all this was. And he said to me that he would make clear to me the sense of these things.

¹⁷ These great beasts are four kings who will be cut off from the earth.

¹⁸ But the saints of the Most High will take the kingdom, and it will be theirs for ever, even for ever and ever.

¹⁹ Then it was my desire to have certain knowledge about the fourth beast, which was different from all the others, a cause of great fear, whose teeth were of iron and his nails of brass; who took his food, crushing some of it to bits and stamping on the rest with his feet;

²⁰ And about the ten horns on his head and the other which came up, causing the fall of three; that horn which had eyes, and a mouth saying great things, which seemed to be greater than the other horns.

²¹ And I saw how that horn made war on the saints and overcame them,

²² Till he came, who was very old, and the decision was made and the authority was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came when the saints took the kingdom.

²³ This is what he said: The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom which will come on earth, different from all the kingdoms, and it will overcome all the earth, crushing it down and smashing it.

²⁴ And as for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will come to power; and after them another will come up: he will be different from the first ones and will put down three kings.

²⁵ And he will say words against the Most High, attempting to put an end to the saints of the Most High; and he will have the idea of changing times and law; and the saints will be given into his hands for a time and times and half a time.

²⁶ But the judge will be seated, and they will put an end to his authority, to overcome it and send complete destruction on it.

²⁷ And the kingdom and the authority and the power of the kingdoms under all the heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Most High: his kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and all powers will be his servants and do his pleasure.

²⁸ Here is the end of the account. As for me, Daniel, I was greatly troubled by my thoughts, and the colour went from my face: but I kept the thing in my heart.