Many will be purified, made clean, and refined, but the wicked will go on being wicked. None of the wicked will understand, though the wise will understand.

Then he will enter the beautiful land. ¹  Many ²  will fall, but these will escape: ³  Edom, Moab, and the Ammonite leadership.

His power will be great, but it will not be by his strength alone. He will cause terrible destruction. ¹  He will be successful in what he undertakes. ²  He will destroy powerful people and the people of the holy ones. ³ 

But the court will convene, ¹  and his ruling authority will be removed – destroyed and abolished forever!

When they stumble, they will be granted some help. But many will unite with them deceitfully.

He will extend his power ¹  against other lands; the land of Egypt will not escape.

Those who share the king’s fine food will attempt to destroy him, and his army will be swept away; ¹  many will be killed in battle.

The one advancing against him will do as he pleases, and no one will be able to stand before him. He will prevail in the beautiful land, and its annihilation will be within his power. ¹ 

“Then the king of the south ¹  and one of his subordinates ²  will grow strong. His subordinate ³  will resist ⁴  him and will rule a kingdom greater than his. ⁵ 

The ten horns mean that ten kings will arise from that kingdom. Another king will arise after them, but he will be different from the earlier ones. He will humiliate ¹  three kings.

Then he will turn his attention ¹  to the coastal regions and will capture many of them. But a commander ²  will bring his shameful conduct to a halt; in addition, ³  he will make him pay for his shameful conduct. ⁴ 

He will attack ¹  mighty fortresses, aided by ²  a foreign deity. To those who recognize him he will grant considerable honor. He will place them in authority over many people, and he will parcel out land for a price. ³ 

“Then the king of the south ¹  will be enraged and will march out to fight against the king of the north, who will also muster a large army, but that army will be delivered into his hand.

“This is what he told me: ¹  ‘The fourth beast means that there will be a fourth kingdom on earth that will differ from all the other kingdoms. It will devour all the earth and will trample and crush it.

When the army is taken away, the king of the south will become arrogant. ¹  He will be responsible for the death ²  of thousands and thousands of people, ³  but he will not continue to prevail.

“There will arise in his ¹  place one from her family line ²  who will come against their army and will enter the stronghold of the king of the north and will move against them successfully. ³ 

Armies ¹  will be suddenly ²  swept away in defeat ³  before him; both they and a covenant leader ⁴  will be destroyed. ⁵ 

In the days of those kings the God of heaven will raise up an everlasting kingdom that will not be destroyed and a kingdom that will not be left to another people. It will break in pieces and bring about the demise of all these kingdoms. But it will stand forever.

This was the dream. Now we ¹  will set forth before the king its interpretation.

Then the king of the north will advance and will build siege mounds and capture a well-fortified city. ¹  The forces of the south will not prevail, not even his finest contingents. ²  They will have no strength to prevail.