At the end of the ten days their appearance was better and their bodies were healthier than all the young men who had been eating the royal delicacies.

While these words were still on the king's lips, a voice came down from heaven: "It is hereby announced to you, King Nebuchadnezzar, that your kingdom has been removed from you!

So they brought the gold and silver vessels that had been confiscated from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, together with his wives and concubines, drank from them.

When Daniel realized that a written decree had been issued, he entered his home, where the windows in his upper room opened toward Jerusalem. Three times daily he was kneeling and offering prayers and thanks to his God just as he had been accustomed to do previously.

As for the rest of the beasts, their ruling authority had already been removed, though they were permitted to go on living for a time and a season.

In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, who was of Median descent and who had been appointed king over the Babylonian empire --

O LORD, we have been humiliated -- our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors -- because we have sinned against you.

He has carried out his threats against us and our rulers who were over us by bringing great calamity on us -- what has happened to Jerusalem has never been equaled under all heaven!

"Seventy weeks have been determined concerning your people and your holy city to put an end to rebellion, to bring sin to completion, to atone for iniquity, to bring in perpetual righteousness, to seal up the prophetic vision, and to anoint a most holy place.

Now after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off and have nothing. As for the city and the sanctuary, the people of the coming prince will destroy them. But his end will come speedily like a flood. Until the end of the war that has been decreed there will be destruction.

He said to me, "Daniel, you are of great value. Understand the words that I am about to speak to you. So stand up, for I have now been sent to you." When he said this to me, I stood up shaking.

"Then there will arise in his place a despicable person to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred. He will come on the scene in a time of prosperity and will seize the kingdom through deceit.

"Then the king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every deity and he will utter presumptuous things against the God of gods. He will succeed until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been decreed must occur.

Then I heard the man clothed in linen who was over the waters of the river as he raised both his right and left hands to the sky and made an oath by the one who lives forever: "It is for a time, times, and half a time. Then, when the power of the one who shatters the holy people has been exhausted, all these things will be finished."

But you should go your way until the end. You will rest and then at the end of the days you will arise to receive what you have been allotted."