Danieli 2

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream

¹In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His mind was so troubled that he could not sleep.^{a 2}So the king ordered that the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king what he had dreamed. They came and stood before the king.^{b 3}The king said to them, “I have had a dream, and my mind is troubled. I want to know what the dream was.” ⁴Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, “O king, may you live forever! Describe the dream to your servants, and we will explain its meaning.”^{c 5}The king replied to the Chaldeans, “My decision is firm: unless you tell me both the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be turned into rubbish heaps.^{d 6}But if you make known the dream and its interpretation, you will receive gifts and rewards and great honor from me. So tell me the dream and its interpretation.” ⁷They answered a second time, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will make known its interpretation.” ⁸The king replied, “I know for sure that you are trying to gain time, because you see that my decision is final. ⁹If you do not make the dream known to me, there is just one sentence for you. You have agreed among yourselves to tell me lies and deceit until things change. So tell me the dream, and then I will know that you can explain it to me.” ¹⁰The Chaldeans answered the king, “There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any magician, enchanter or Chaldean. ¹¹What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among human beings.” ¹²This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered all the wise men of Babylon to be put to death. ¹³So the decree was issued that the wise men were to be killed, and they looked for Daniel and his friends to kill them.

Daniel asks for time

¹⁴Then Daniel spoke with wisdom and tact to Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, who had gone out to put the wise men of Babylon to death. ¹⁵He asked Arioch, the king’s officer, “Why is the king’s decree so urgent?” Then Arioch explained the matter to Daniel. ¹⁶So Daniel went in and asked the king to give him time, so that he might tell the king the interpretation.

The secret revealed to Daniel

¹⁷Then Daniel went home and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah what had happened. ¹⁸He urged them to ask the God of heaven for mercy concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends would not be put to death with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. ¹⁹Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision during the night, and Daniel praised the God of heaven. ²⁰Daniel said: \q “Blessed be the name of God \q from age to age, \q for wisdom and power belong to him. ²¹He changes times and seasons; \q he deposes kings and installs kings. \q He gives wisdom to the wise \q and knowledge to those with insight. ²²He reveals deep and hidden things; \q he knows what is in the darkness, \q and light lives with him. ²³To you, God of my ancestors, I give thanks and praise, \q for you have given me wisdom and power. \q Now you have shown me what we asked of you; \q you have made known to us what the king wanted to know.” ²⁴So Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to put the wise men of Babylon to death. He went and said to him, “Do not put the wise men of Babylon to death. Take me to the king, and I will tell the king the interpretation.”

Daniel before the king

²⁵Arioch quickly took Daniel to the king and said, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king the interpretation.” ²⁶The king said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Can you tell me the dream I had and what it means?” ²⁷Daniel replied to the king, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians or diviners can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about. ²⁸But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the days to come. This was your dream, the visions that passed through your mind as you lay in bed:

The statue and the stone

²⁹As you lay in bed, O king, your thoughts turned to what would happen in the future, and the revealer of mysteries has shown you what is going to happen. ³⁰As for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that the king may know the interpretation and understand the thoughts of his heart. ³¹You were watching, O king, and there before you stood a great statue. This statue was huge and its brightness dazzling, and it stood in front of you, frightening to look at. ³²The head of the statue was made of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, ³³its legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. ³⁴While you watched, a stone was cut out, though no human hand touched it. It struck the statue’s feet of iron and clay and smashed them. ³⁵Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces at once and became like chaff on a threshing floor in summer. The wind swept them away, and not a trace of them remained. But the stone that had struck the statue grew into a great mountain and filled the whole earth. ³⁶That was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. ³⁷You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you the kingdom, the power, the might and the glory. ³⁸Wherever people live, he has put them in your power, and the wild animals and the birds of the sky too, and he has made you ruler over them all. You are the head of gold. ³⁹After you another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours, and then a third kingdom, of bronze, which will rule over the whole earth.^{e 40}Then there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron. Just as iron shatters and crushes everything, and as iron breaks things to pieces, it will crush and break all the others. ⁴¹And just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly potter’s clay and partly iron, so it will be a divided kingdom. It will still have some of the strength of iron, as you saw iron mixed with clay. ⁴²The toes of the feet were part iron and part clay; so the kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³And as you saw iron mixed with clay, so they will mix with one another by marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.^{f 44}In the time of those kings the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Its rule will never pass to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. ⁴⁵This is the meaning of the stone you saw cut out of the mountain, not by human hands, which smashed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold. A great God has shown the king what is to come. The dream is certain, and its interpretation can be trusted.”

The king honors Daniel

⁴⁶Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell face down and bowed before Daniel, and he ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him.^{g 47}The king said to Daniel, “Your God is truly the God above all gods and the Lord over kings, and one who reveals mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.” ⁴⁸Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts. He made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect in charge of all the wise men of Babylon. ⁴⁹Daniel made a request of the king, and the king put Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in charge of the affairs of the province of Babylon, while Daniel remained at the royal court.