The Last Vision

Daniel turned to the Lord God to seek him, praying and pleading. He fasted, and he prayed in sackcloth and ashes.

“Lord, you are righteous,” he prayed, “but we are full of shame today: the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel, near and far, in every country where you have driven them because they were unfaithful to you. Lord, the shame belongs to us, to our kings and leaders and ancestors, because we have sinned against you.

“Mercy and forgiveness belong to the Lord our God. We have rebelled against him. We haven’t done what the Lord our God told us, or followed the laws he set out for us through his servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel has gone against your law. They turned aside and wouldn’t listen to you. That is why the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, God’s servant, have been poured out on us, because we sinned against him.

“He has carried out what he said against us and against the judges who ruled us: he has brought great harm on us. What has been done to Jerusalem has never been done anywhere else under the whole sky. All this harm has come on us, just as the law of Moses says. Yet we haven’t asked the Lord our God for his favor. We haven’t turned from our sins or come to understand your truth. So the Lord kept watch over this harm and brought it on us, because the Lord our God is righteous in all he does, and we have not listened to him.

“Now, Lord our God, with a mighty hand you brought your people out of the land of Egypt, and you won a name for yourself that lasts to this day. We have sinned. We have done wicked things. Lord, in all your righteousness, please turn your anger and your fury away from Jerusalem, your city, your holy mountain. Because of our sins and the wrongs of our ancestors, everyone around us looks down on Jerusalem and your people.

He taught Daniel and talked with him. “Daniel,” he said, “I have come now to give you wisdom and understanding. When you began to pray, a command went out, and I have come to tell you, because you are greatly beloved. So think about the message, and understand the vision.

“Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.

“Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times. After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined. He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate; and even to the decreed full end, wrath will be poured out on the desolate.”

In those days Daniel mourned for three whole weeks. He ate no fine food. No meat or wine went into his mouth, and he put no oil on his skin at all until the three whole weeks were over.

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, Daniel was beside the great river Hiddekel, the Tigris. He looked up, and there was a man clothed in linen. Pure gold of Uphaz was around his waist, and his body was like beryl. His face looked like lightning, and his eyes were like flaming torches. His arms and his feet looked like polished bronze, and when he spoke, his voice was like the noise of a great crowd.

Only Daniel saw the vision. The men with him didn’t see it, but they started trembling all over and ran off to hide. So Daniel was left alone with this great vision. He had no strength left. His face grew deathly pale, and all his strength was gone.

Still, he heard the sound of the man’s words. As he heard them, he fell into a deep sleep, lying face down on the ground.

Then he said, “Don’t be afraid, Daniel. From the first day that you set your heart on understanding and humbled yourself before your God, your words were heard. Your words are the reason I have come. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia stood against me for twenty-one days. Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, because the vision is for many days from now.”

When he had said this, Daniel turned his face to the ground and could not speak. Then someone who looked like a human being touched his lips. Daniel opened his mouth and spoke to the one standing in front of him. “My lord,” he said, “because of the vision, pain has come over me, and I have no strength left. How can I talk with you, my lord? All at once my strength left me, and there is no breath left in me.”

Once more someone who looked like a man touched Daniel and made him strong. “Greatly beloved man, don’t be afraid,” he said. “Peace be with you. Be strong. Yes, be strong.” As he spoke, Daniel grew stronger. “Let my lord speak,” Daniel said, “because you have made me strong.”

Then he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? Now I will go back to fight the prince of Persia. When I go out, the prince of Greece will come. Still, I will tell you what is set down in the writing of truth. Only Michael, your prince, stands with me against them. As for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to help him and make him strong.”

“The king of the south will be strong, but one of his princes will grow stronger than he is and rule over a great kingdom. After some years they will join together. The daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make an agreement, but she won’t hold on to her strength. He won’t last either, and neither will his strength. She will be handed over, with those who brought her, the one who became her father, and the one who gave her strength in those times. But someone from her own family line will rise in his place. He will come to the army, enter the fortress of the king of the north, deal with them, and win. He will carry their gods off to Egypt as captives, with their images cast from metal and their fine vessels of silver and gold. For some years he will keep away from the king of the north. He will come into the kingdom of the king of the south, but go back to his own land.

“His sons will go to war and bring together a vast number of troops. They will advance, overflow like a flood and pass through. Then they will go to war again, right up to his fortress. The king of the south will grow angry. He will come out and fight the king of the north. He will send out a huge army, and that army will be handed over to him. The army will be carried off, and his heart will swell with pride. He will strike down tens of thousands, but he won’t win. The king of the north will come back and send out an army bigger than the first. Some years later he will advance with a great army and plenty of supplies.

“In those times many will stand up against the king of the south. Some violent men of your own people will also rise up to make the vision come true, but they will fall. So the king of the north will come, pile up a mound of earth against a well-walled city, and take it. The forces of the south won’t stand their ground, and neither will his chosen troops. They will have no strength to stand. The one who comes against him will do as he pleases, and no one will be able to stand up to him. He will stand in the glorious land, and destruction will be in his hand.

“He will make up his mind to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, bringing fair terms, and he will carry them out. He will give him the daughter of women to destroy the kingdom. But she won’t stand, and she won’t be on his side. After this he will turn toward the islands and take many, but a prince will put a stop to his insults, and turn his insults back on him. Then he will turn toward the fortresses of his own land, but he will stumble and fall and be found no more. Someone else will rise in his place. He will send a tax collector through the kingdom to keep up its glory. But in a few days he will be destroyed, not in anger and not in battle.

“He will gather his strength and courage and come against the king of the south with a great army. The king of the south will fight back with a huge and mighty army, but he won’t stand, because they will plot against him. Those who eat his fine food will destroy him, and his army will be swept away. Many will fall dead. Both these kings will mean harm in their hearts. They will tell lies at the same table, but it won’t succeed, because the end will still come at the appointed time. Then he will go back to his land with great wealth, and his heart will be against the holy covenant. He will act, and then return to his own land.

“At the appointed time he will come into the south again, but it won’t go the way it did before. Ships of Kittim will come against him, and he will be troubled and turn back. He will be furious with the holy covenant and take action. He will go back and look with favor on those who walk away from the holy covenant. Forces from him will defile the sanctuary, the fortress, and take away the continual burnt offering. Then they will set up the abomination that makes desolate. He will use flattery to corrupt those who sin against the covenant. Yet the people who know their God will be strong and take action.

“Those who are wise among the people will teach many. Yet for many days they will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder. When they fall, a little help will come to them, and many will join them with flattering words. Some of the wise will fall, to refine them, purify them and make them white, until the time of the end, because it is still to come at the appointed time.

“At the time of the end, the king of the south will clash with him, and the king of the north will come at him like a whirlwind, with chariots, horsemen and many ships. He will enter the countries, overflow them and pass through. He will enter the glorious land too, and many countries will fall. But these will escape his hand: Edom, Moab and the chief of the Ammonites. He will reach out his hand against the countries. The land of Egypt won’t escape. He will have power over Egypt’s treasures of gold and silver and all its precious things. The Libyans and the Ethiopians will follow in his steps.

“But news from the east and from the north will trouble him, and he will go out in great fury to destroy many and wipe them out. He will set up the tents of his palace between the sea and the glorious holy mountain. Yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.

“At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.

“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine as the brightness of the expanse. Those who turn many to righteousness will shine as the stars forever and ever.

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many will run back and forth, and knowledge will be increased.”

Daniel heard the man clothed in linen, above the waters of the river, as he held up both hands, his right and his left, to heaven and swore by the one who lives forever. “It will be for a time, times, and a half,” he said. “When they have finished breaking the power of the holy people in pieces, all these things will be finished.”

Daniel heard, but he didn’t understand. “My lord,” he said, “what will be the outcome of these things?”

“Go your way, Daniel,” he said, “because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will purify themselves, make themselves white, and be refined, but the wicked will keep on doing wicked things. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.

“From the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days. Blessed is the one who waits and comes to the one thousand three hundred thirty-five days.

“But go on your way until the end. You will rest, and you will stand in your inheritance at the end of the days.”