Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

At that time Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that was marvelous for the insight into the future it held. Since he could not work out its meaning himself, he sent for the Chaldeans, who were believed to know hidden things and to foretell the future by magic arts and by the entrails of sacrificed animals, so that they might interpret it. Then he began to fear that, in the way people usually do, they would draw from the dream not what was true but what would please the king. So he kept back what he had seen and demanded that, if they really had the power of divination, they tell him the dream itself. He said he would believe their interpretation only if they first proved their skill by telling him the dream. But they refused to attempt so hard a task and admitted that such a thing was beyond human power. The king was enraged: under a false claim to divination they had been mocking people with their errors, and now this case forced them to admit that they had none of the knowledge they pretended to. He exposed them by a royal decree, and all the men who professed that art were publicly put to death. [a]

When Daniel heard of this, he spoke to one of those nearest to the king and promised to tell the dream and to give its interpretation as well. The matter was reported to the king, and Daniel was sent for. God had already revealed the mystery to him, and so he told the king’s vision and interpreted it.

But the matter requires that we set out the king’s dream and its interpretation, together with how his words were fulfilled by what followed. In his sleep, then, the king had seen an image with a head of gold, a chest and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of bronze, and legs of iron, and it ended in feet partly of iron and partly of clay. But the iron and the clay, though blended together, could not hold to each other. At last a stone cut out without hands broke the image to pieces, and the whole of it was ground to dust and carried away by the wind.