he king's secret!"

Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had commanded to kill the wise
men of Babylon, and said to him, "Do not kill the wise men of Babylon.
Take me to the king, and I will tell him what his dream means."

Then Arioch quickly brought Daniel to the king and said to him, "I have
found a man among the captives from Judah who will tell you what this
dream means." The king said to Daniel (whose name was Belteshazzar),
"Can you make known to me the dream which I have had and what it means?"
Daniel answered, "The secret which the king asks is something that
neither wise men, magicians, nor those who study the stars can make
known to him; but there is a God in heaven who tells secrets, and he has
made known to King Nebuchadrezzar what shall come in the future. Your
dream and the visions which you had as you lay asleep are these: You, O
king, had a vision and saw a great image. That image was large and it
was exceedingly bright as it stood before you, and its appearance was
terrible. The head of the image was of fine gold, its breast and its
arms of silver, its body and its thighs of brass, its legs of iron, its
feet part of iron and part of clay. You looked at it until a stone was
cut out, not by the hands of men, which struck the image on its feet of
iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the
brass, the silver, and the gold were all broken in pieces and became
like the chaff which blows from the summer threshing-floors, and the
wind carried them away so that nothing was left of them. But the stone
that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the earth.

"This is the dream, and we will tell the king what it means: O king, you
are the king of kings to whom God has given the rule, the power, the
strength, and the glory. Over the whole world he has given into your
power, men, the wild beasts and the birds, and has made you rule over
them all. You are the head of gold.

"After you shall rise another kingdom not so strong as you are, and a
third kingdom of brass, which shall rule over the whole earth. A fourth
kingdom shall be strong as iron, for iron breaks in pieces and shatters
all things, and like iron which crushes, it shall break in pieces and
crush all things. As you saw the feet and toes, part clay and part iron,
it shall be a divided kingdom; but there shall be in it some of the
strength of the iron, for you saw the iron mixed with clay. As the toes
of the feet