'Empire' in the Bible
Who is like your people, Israel, a unique nation on the earth? Their God went to claim a nation for himself and to make a name for himself! You did great and awesome acts for your land, before your people whom you delivered for yourself from the Egyptian empire and its gods.
And who is like your people, Israel, a unique nation in the earth? Their God went to claim a nation for himself! You made a name for yourself by doing great and awesome deeds when you drove out nations before your people whom you had delivered from the Egyptian empire and its gods.
Everything that the God of heaven has required should be precisely done for the temple of the God of heaven. Why should there be wrath against the empire of the king and his sons?
in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne which was at the citadel in Susa [the capital of the Persian Empire],
And when the king's decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small.
Letters were sent to all the Jews in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the empire of Ahasuerus -- words of true peace --
Sharpen the arrows, take up the shields [and cover yourselves]!The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes,Because His purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it;For that is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance [on Babylon] for [plundering and destroying] His temple.
In every matter of wisdom and insight the king asked them about, he found them to be ten times better than any of the magicians and astrologers that were in his entire empire.
The first (the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar) was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man; a human mind was given to it.
And behold, another beast, a second one (the Medo-Persian Empire), was like a bear, and it was raised up on one side (domain), and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, ‘Arise, devour much meat.’
After this I kept looking, and behold, another one (the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great), like a leopard, which had on its back four wings like those of a bird; the beast also had four heads (Alexander’s generals, his successors), and power to rule was given to it.
After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, [I saw] a fourth beast (the Roman Empire), terrible and extremely strong; and it had huge iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that came before it, and it had ten horns (ten kings).
In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, who was of Median descent and who had been appointed king over the Babylonian empire --
And now I will tell you the truth. Behold, three more kings are going to arise in Persia. Then a fourth will gain far more riches than all of them; as soon as he becomes strong through his riches, he will arouse the whole empire against the realm of Greece.
Then the king of the north will advance against the empire of the king of the south, but will withdraw to his own land.
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered.
But, failing to find them, they dragged Jason and some of the other brethren before the magistrates of the city, loudly accusing them. "These men," they said, "who have raised a tumult throughout the Empire, have come here also.
For we have found this man [to be] a public menace and one who causes riots among all the Jews throughout the Roman Empire and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes,
And the woman you saw is the great city that has an empire over the kings of the earth.”