36 This was the dream, and we will now tell the king its interpretation.
37 You, O king, are the king of kings, for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory.
38 He has placed into your hands control over every person, animal, and bird that dwells under the heavens. Wherever they live, He has given you sovereignty over them all. You are the head of gold.
39 After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours; then a third kingdom, made of bronze, which will rule over the whole earth.
40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, for iron crushes and shatters everything. And just as iron breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all the others.
41 But as you saw the feet and toes made partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom. However, it will have some of the strength of iron, as you saw the iron mixed with the clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom will be partly strong and partly fragile.
43 As you saw the iron mixed with clay, the people will mix but will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
44 In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will stand forever.
45 This is because you saw a stone cut out from a mountain without human hands, and it crushed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God has made known to the king what will happen in the future. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is trustworthy.