1 As for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I took my stand to be a support and a protection for him.
2 And now I will declare the truth to you. Three more kings are going to arise in Persia, and the fourth will gain far greater wealth than all of them. When he has become strong through his wealth, he will rouse them all against the kingdom of Greece.
3 Then a powerful king will arise; he will rule a vast dominion and act as he pleases.
4 But no sooner has he arisen than his kingdom will be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven, not to his posterity, nor with the dominion that he had exercised; for his kingdom will be plucked up and go to others apart from these.
5 The king of the south will become strong, but one of his commanders will become stronger than he and will rule; his rule will be a great dominion.
6 At the end of some years they will join in alliance; the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make an agreement. But she will not retain the strength of her arm, and he and his arm will not stand; she will be handed over, together with those who brought her, the one who begot her, and the one who supported her in those times.
7 But a shoot from her roots will arise in his place. He will come against the army and enter the stronghold of the king of the north, act against them and prevail.
8 Their gods also, with their molten images and their precious vessels of silver and gold, he will carry away captive to Egypt; and for some years he will stand off from the king of the north.
9 Then that one will enter the realm of the king of the south, but will go back to his own land.
10 His sons will wage war and gather a multitude of great forces; one of them will surely come on, sweep through like a flood and pass over, and again he will carry the war as far as his stronghold.
11 Then the king of the south, enraged, will march out and fight against him, against the king of the north. He will muster a great multitude, but that multitude will be given into the other's hand.
12 When the multitude has been carried off, his heart will grow proud; he will bring down tens of thousands, yet he will not prevail.
13 For the king of the north will again muster a multitude larger than the first, and at the end of the times, after some years, he will surely come on with a great army and abundant supplies.
14 In those times many will rise against the king of the south, and the violent men of your own people will exalt themselves to fulfill the vision, but they will stumble.
15 So the king of the north will come and heap up a siege mound and capture a fortified city. The forces of the south will not stand, nor even his picked troops; they will have no strength to stand.
16 But the one who comes against him will do as he pleases, and none will stand before him. He will take his stand in the glorious land, and destruction will be in his hand.
17 He will set his face to come with the power of his entire kingdom, bringing terms of an agreement with him, and he will carry them out. He will give him the daughter of women to destroy it; but it will not stand, nor will it be for him.
18 Afterward he will turn his face toward the coastlands and capture many. But a commander will bring his scorn to an end for him; indeed, he will pay him back his scorn.
19 Then he will turn his face toward the strongholds of his own land, but he will stumble and fall, and he will be found no more.
20 In his place one will arise who sends an oppressor through the splendor of the kingdom; but within a few days he will be broken, though not in anger and not in battle.
21 In his place a despised man will arise, to whom the honor of royalty has not been given. He will come in quietly and take hold of the kingdom through intrigues.
22 Flooding forces will be swept away before him and broken, and the prince of the covenant as well.
23 After an alliance is made with him he will practice deceit; he will rise up and become mighty with a small number of people.
24 Quietly he will come into the richest places of the province and do what neither his fathers nor his fathers' fathers did: he will scatter plunder, spoil and wealth among them, and devise his schemes against strongholds, but only for a time.
25 He will rouse his strength and his courage against the king of the south with a large army; and the king of the south will go to battle with a very large and powerful army, but he will not stand, for schemes will be devised against him.
26 Those who eat from his table of delicacies will ruin him; his army will be swept away, and many will fall down slain.
27 The two kings, their hearts bent on evil, will speak lies at one table; but it will not succeed, for the end is yet to come at the appointed time.
28 He will return to his land with great riches, his heart set against the holy covenant; he will take action and then return to his own land.
29 At the appointed time he will return and come into the south, but this time it will not be as it was before.
30 Ships of Kittim will come against him, and he will be disheartened and withdraw. He will vent his indignation against the holy covenant and take action; he will turn back and give heed to those who forsake the holy covenant.
31 Forces from him will take their stand and profane the sanctuary, the stronghold; they will do away with the continual offering and set up the abomination that makes desolate.
32 Those who act wickedly against the covenant he will corrupt with smooth words, but the people who know their God will show strength and act.
33 The wise among the people will instruct many, though for a time they will stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder.
34 When they stumble, they will be helped with a little help, and many will attach themselves to them with flattery.
35 And some of the wise will stumble, so as to refine them, to purge them and to make them white until the time of the end, for it is still to come at the appointed time.
36 The king will act as he pleases; he will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and against the God of gods he will speak marvelous things. He will succeed until the indignation is completed, for what has been decreed will be done.
37 He will not give heed to the gods of his fathers or to the one desired by women; he will not give heed to any god, for he will magnify himself above them all.
38 In their place he will honor a god of strongholds; a god his fathers never knew he will honor with gold and silver, with costly stones and treasures.
39 He will deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. Whoever acknowledges him he will heap with honor; he will make them rulers over many and parcel out land for a price.
40 At the time of the end the king of the south will push against him, and the king of the north will rush on him like a whirlwind with chariots, horsemen and many ships; he will enter countries, sweep through them like a flood and pass on.
41 He will come into the glorious land, and many will stumble; but these will be delivered from his hand: Edom, Moab and the leading part of the children of Ammon.
42 He will stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt will have no escape.
43 He will have power over the hidden treasures of gold and silver and over all the precious things of Egypt, and Libyans and Cushites will follow in his steps.
44 But news from the east and the north will alarm him, and he will set out in great rage to destroy and to devote many to destruction.
45 He will pitch his palatial tents between the seas and the glorious holy mountain; yet he will come to his end, with no one to help him.