1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylonia, Daniel had a dream and visions in his mind while lying on his bed. Then he wrote down what he had seen in the dream. He wrote down the most important events: 2 Daniel explained, “In my vision at night I saw that the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. 3 Four large animals, each one different from the other, came up out of the sea. 4 The first was like a lion but had eagle's wings. As I was looking, its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground and made to stand on two feet, like a man. The mind of a man was given to it. 5 Then there was a second animal, like a bear, and it was bending over; it had three ribs between its teeth in its mouth. It was told, 'Get up and devour many people.' 6 After this I looked again. There was another animal, one that looked like a leopard. On its back it had four wings like bird wings, and it had four heads. It was given authority to rule. 7 After this I saw in the visions of the night a fourth animal, terrifying, frightening, and very strong. It had large iron teeth; it devoured, broke in pieces, and trampled underfoot what was left. It was different from the other animals, and it had ten horns. 8 While I was considering the horns, I looked and saw another horn grow up among them, a little horn. Three of the first horns were wrenched out by the roots. I saw in this horn eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that was boasting about great things.

9 As I looked,