"After these things, as I was watching in the night visions a fourth beast appeared -- one dreadful, terrible, and very strong. It had two large rows of iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and anything that was left it trampled with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that came before it, and it had ten horns.

A river of fire was streaming forth and proceeding from his presence. Many thousands were ministering to him; Many tens of thousands stood ready to serve him. The court convened and the books were opened.

These large beasts, which are four in number, represent four kings who will arise from the earth.

"Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others. It was very dreadful, with two rows of iron teeth and bronze claws, and it devoured, crushed, and trampled anything that was left with its feet.

"This is what he told me: '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.

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 three kings.

"This is the conclusion of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts troubled me greatly, and the color drained from my face. But I kept the matter to myself."

I saw that the ram was butting westward, northward, and southward. No animal was able to stand before it, and there was none who could deliver from its power. It did as it pleased and acted arrogantly.

While I was contemplating all this, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of all the land without touching the ground. This goat had a conspicuous horn between its eyes.

I saw it approaching the ram. It went into a fit of rage against the ram and struck it and broke off its two horns. The ram had no ability to resist it. The goat hurled the ram to the ground and trampled it. No one could deliver the ram from its power.

From one of them came a small horn. But it grew to be very big, toward the south and the east and toward the beautiful land.

It also acted arrogantly against the Prince of the army, from whom the daily sacrifice was removed and whose sanctuary was thrown down.

Then I heard a human voice coming from between the banks of the Ulai. It called out, "Gabriel, enable this person to understand the vision."

The horn that was broken and in whose place there arose four others stands for four kingdoms that will arise from his nation, though they will not have his strength.

The vision of the evenings and mornings that was told to you is correct. But you should seal up the vision, for it refers to a time many days from now."

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, came to understand from the sacred books that, according to the word of the LORD disclosed to the prophet Jeremiah, the years for the fulfilling of the desolation of Jerusalem were seventy in number.

we have sinned! We have done what is wrong and wicked; we have rebelled by turning away from your commandments and standards.

Just as it is written in the law of Moses, so all this calamity has come on us. Still we have not tried to pacify the LORD our God by turning back from our sin and by seeking wisdom from your reliable moral standards.

O Lord, according to all your justice, please turn your raging anger away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain. For due to our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people are mocked by all our neighbors.

So know and understand: From the issuing of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a prince arrives, there will be a period of seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will again be built, with plaza and moat, but in distressful times.

I looked up and saw a man clothed in linen; around his waist was a belt made of gold from Upaz.

I alone was left to see this great vision. My strength drained from me, and my vigor disappeared; I was without energy.

Then he said to me, "Don't be afraid, Daniel, for from the very first day you applied your mind to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. I have come in response to your words.

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

He will also take their gods into captivity to Egypt, along with their cast images and prized utensils of silver and gold. Then he will withdraw for some years from the king of the north.

But reports will trouble him from the east and north, and he will set out in a tremendous rage to destroy and wipe out many.

"At that time Michael, the great prince who watches over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress unlike any other from the nation's beginning up to that time. But at that time your own people, all those whose names are found written in the book, will escape.

From the time that the daily sacrifice is removed and the abomination that causes desolation is set in place, there are 1,290 days.

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, he said to him, "Go marry a prostitute who will bear illegitimate children conceived through prostitution, because the nation continually commits spiritual prostitution by turning away from the Lord."

Plead earnestly with your mother (for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband), so that she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior.

Soon I will expose her lewd nakedness in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to rescue her from me!

From there I will give back her vineyards to her, and turn the "Valley of Trouble" into an "Opportunity for Hope." There she will sing as she did when she was young, when she came up from the land of Egypt.

For I will remove the names of the Baal idols from your lips, so that you will never again utter their names!"

"At that time I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I will abolish the warrior's bow and sword -- that is, every weapon of warfare -- from the land, and I will allow them to live securely."

I know Ephraim all too well; the evil of Israel is not hidden from me. For you have engaged in prostitution, O Ephraim; Israel has defiled itself.

Although they bring their flocks and herds to seek the favor of the Lord, They will not find him -- he has withdrawn himself from them!

Woe to them! For they have fled from me! Destruction to them! For they have rebelled against me! I want to deliver them, but they have lied to me.

They do not pray to me, but howl in distress on their beds; They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from me.

Look! Even if they flee from the destruction, Egypt will take hold of them, and Memphis will bury them. The weeds will inherit the silver they treasure -- thorn bushes will occupy their homes.

Even if they raise their children, I will take away every last one of them. Woe to them! For I will turn away from them.

The inhabitants of Samaria will lament over the calf idol of Beth Aven. Its people will mourn over it; its idolatrous priests will wail over it, because its splendor will be taken from them into exile.

But the more I summoned them, the farther they departed from me. They sacrificed to the Baal idols and burned incense to images.

I led them with leather cords, with leather ropes; I lifted the yoke from their neck, and gently fed them.

My people are obsessed with turning away from me; they call to Baal, but he will never exalt them!

He will roar like a lion, and they will follow the Lord; when he roars, his children will come trembling from the west.

They will return in fear and trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria, and I will settle them in their homes," declares the Lord.

Even now they persist in sin! They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: "Those who sacrifice to the calf idol are calf kissers!"

Therefore they will disappear like the morning mist, like early morning dew that evaporates, like chaff that is blown away from a threshing floor, like smoke that disappears through an open window.

Will I deliver them from the power of Sheol? No, I will not! Will I redeem them from death? No, I will not! O Death, bring on your plagues! O Sheol, bring on your destruction! My eyes will not show any compassion!

Even though he flourishes like a reed plant, a scorching east wind will come, a wind from the Lord rising up from the desert. As a result, his spring will dry up; his well will become dry. That wind will spoil all his delightful foods in the containers in his storehouse.

"I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger will turn away from them.

People will reside again in his shade; they will plant and harvest grain in abundance. They will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore! I will answer him and care for him. I am like a luxuriant cypress tree; your fruitfulness comes from me!

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, because the sweet wine has been taken away from you.

How awful that day will be! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer.

Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger and boundless in loyal love -- often relenting from calamitous punishment.

Gather the people; sanctify an assembly! Gather the elders; gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out from his bedroom and the bride from her private quarters.

Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. Let them say, "Have pity, O Lord, on your people; please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked, to become a proverb among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, "Where is their God?"

I will remove the one from the north far from you. I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place. Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. His stench will rise up as a foul smell." Indeed, the Lord has accomplished great things.

You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks, removing them far from their own country.

Look! I am rousing them from that place to which you sold them. I will repay you for what you have done!

The Lord roars from Zion; from Jerusalem his voice bellows out. The heavens and the earth shake. But the Lord is a refuge for his people; he is a stronghold for the citizens of Israel.

On that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. All the dry stream beds of Judah will flow with water. A spring will flow out from the temple of the Lord, watering the Valley of Acacia Trees.

But Judah will reside securely forever, and Jerusalem will be secure from one generation to the next.

The following is a record of what Amos prophesied. He was one of the herdsmen from Tekoa. These prophecies about Israel were revealed to him during the time of King Uzziah of Judah and King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

Amos said: "The Lord comes roaring out of Zion; from Jerusalem he comes bellowing! The shepherds' pastures wilt; the summit of Carmel withers."

I will break the bar on the gate of Damascus. I will remove the ruler from Wicked Valley, the one who holds the royal scepter from Beth Eden. The people of Aram will be deported to Kir." The Lord has spoken!

I will remove the ruler from Ashdod, the one who holds the royal scepter from Ashkelon. I will strike Ekron with my hand; the rest of the Philistines will also die." The sovereign Lord has spoken!

I brought you up from the land of Egypt; I led you through the wilderness for forty years so you could take the Amorites' land as your own.

Listen, you Israelites, to this message which the Lord is proclaiming against you! This message is for the entire clan I brought up from the land of Egypt:

"I have chosen you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins."

Does a lion roar in the woods if he has not cornered his prey? Does a young lion bellow from his den if he has not caught something?

Does a bird swoop down into a trap on the ground if there is no bait? Does a trap spring up from the ground unless it has surely caught something?

This is what the Lord says: "Just as a shepherd salvages from the lion's mouth a couple of leg bones or a piece of an ear, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be salvaged. They will be left with just a corner of a bed, and a part of a couch."

"I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. I gave rain to one city, but not to another. One field would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

People from two or three cities staggered into one city to get water, but remained thirsty. Still you did not come back to me." The Lord is speaking!

"I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. I killed your young men with the sword, along with the horses you had captured. I made the stench from the corpses rise up into your nostrils. Still you did not come back to me." The Lord is speaking!

"I overthrew some of you the way God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the flames. Still you did not come back to me." The Lord is speaking!

Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops and exact a grain tax from them, you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone, nor will you drink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.

Hate what is wrong, love what is right! Promote justice at the city gate! Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on those who are left from Joseph.

Disaster will be inescapable, as if a man ran from a lion only to meet a bear, then escaped into a house, leaned his hand against the wall, and was bitten by a poisonous snake.

"I absolutely despise your festivals! I get no pleasure from your religious assemblies!

Take away from me your noisy songs; I don't want to hear the music of your stringed instruments.

They say to the people: "Journey over to Calneh and look at it! Then go from there to Hamath-Rabbah! Then go down to Gath of the Philistines! Are they superior to our two kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours?"

They lie around on beds decorated with ivory, and sprawl out on their couches. They eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the middle of the pen.

They drink wine from sacrificial bowls, and pour the very best oils on themselves. Yet they are not concerned over the ruin of Joseph.

When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, "Is anyone else with you?" He will respond, "Be quiet! Don't invoke the Lord's name!"

"Look! I am about to bring a nation against you, family of Israel." The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking. "They will oppress you all the way from Lebo-Hamath to the Stream of the Arabah."

As a matter of fact, Amos is saying this: 'Jeroboam will die by the sword and Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.'"

Then the Lord took me from tending flocks and gave me this commission, 'Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!'

"Therefore this is what the Lord says: 'Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets and your sons and daughters will die violently. Your land will be given to others and you will die in a foreign land. Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.'"

People will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north around to the east. They will wander about looking for a revelation from the Lord, but they will not find any.

In that day your beautiful young women and your young men will faint from thirst.

Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, my hand would pull them up from there. Even if they could climb up to heaven, I would drag them down from there.

Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel, I would hunt them down and take them from there. Even if they tried to hide from me at the bottom of the sea, from there I would command the Sea Serpent to bite them.

Even when their enemies drive them into captivity, from there I will command the sword to kill them. I will not let them out of my sight; they will experience disaster, not prosperity."

"You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight," says the Lord. "Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir.

Look, the sovereign Lord is watching the sinful nation, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. But I will not completely destroy the family of Jacob," says the Lord.

I will plant them on their land and they will never again be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the Lord your God.

We have heard a report from the Lord. An envoy was sent among the nations, saying, "Arise! Let us make war against Edom!"