The Daily Audio Bible

The angel gives his message to Daniel

² Then the angel said to Daniel, ‘Now I will tell you the truth about what will happen. There will be three more kings who rule Persia. After them, there will be a fourth king. He will be richer than all the other kings who ruled before him. He will become very powerful because of his riches. Then he will tell other nations that they must attack the kingdom of Greece.

³ Then a great king will appear. He will rule with great power. He will do whatever he wants to do.^{[a] 4} While he rules powerfully like that, his kingdom will quickly break into four parts. Those parts will be in all directions. His descendants will not rule his kingdom. Instead, other people will rule as kings, but their kingdoms will not be as powerful.

⁵ Then the king who rules in the south will become strong. But one of his own army officers will become even stronger. That officer will rule a greater kingdom than the king of the south.^[b]

⁶ After some years, the king of the south and the king of the north will agree to be friends.^[c] The king of the south's daughter will go to marry the king of the north. That would make their agreement strong. But the plan will fail. She will lose her authority. Her husband will no longer rule as king. Someone will kill her, her husband, her child and the servants who helped her.

⁷ Later, someone from her family will become king of the south. He will attack the army of the king of the north. He will go into that king's strong city. He will win the battle against the king of the north. ⁸ He will take the images of their gods back to Egypt with him. He will also take away valuable things that they had made from gold and silver. Then for several years, he will not attack the king of the north again.

⁹ After that, the king of the north will take his army into the land that the king of the south rules. But they will cause him to return to his own country. ¹⁰ Then his sons will prepare to fight a war. They will bring together a large army. Their soldiers will march forward like a powerful river. They will fight a battle all the way into the strong place of their enemy.^[d]

¹¹ Then the king of the south will be very angry. He will march with his army to fight against the king of the north. The king from the north will also have a large army, but the king of the south will win the battle. ¹² The king of the south will boast that he has destroyed this large army. He will be proud that he has killed thousands of people. But he will not continue to win battles. ¹³ The king of the north will again bring together a large army. It will be even bigger than the army that he had before. After a few years, he will march forward with his great army and all their many weapons.

¹⁴ At that time, many people will turn against the king of the south. Violent men from your own people in Israel will also be ready to attack him. This would make the vision become true. They will fight against him, but they will fail. ¹⁵ Then the king from the north will march south with his army. He will build up heaps of earth around the walls of a strong city.^[e] He will take the city for himself. The soldiers of the kingdom in the south will not be able to stop him. Even their best soldiers will not be strong enough to win the fight. ¹⁶ The king who attacked from the north will do whatever he wants to do. Nobody will be able to stop him. He will march into the Beautiful Land. He will have the power to destroy it.^[f]

¹⁷ The king from the north will decide to march south with all his kingdom's strong army. He will make an agreement with the king of the south. He will give one of his daughters to marry the king of the south. He will try to destroy that kingdom, but his plan will fail. His daughter will not be able to do anything to help him.

¹⁸ After this, he will decide to attack the countries near the sea. He will take many of their cities for himself. But an officer of a foreign army will stop him. He will cause the king of the north to stop boasting. He will no longer be proud but he will be ashamed. ¹⁹ So the king of the north will return to the strong cities in his own country. But he will lose his power and he will fall. Nobody will ever see him again.

²⁰ Then another king will rule in the north. He will try to make his kingdom even greater. He will send out a cruel man to take taxes from people. But that king will soon die. This will not happen in a battle or because people are angry with him.

The evil king of the north

²¹ The king who rules after him will be an evil man. He will not belong to the royal family, so he should not be the king. He will deceive people to make himself the king. It will happen at a time when people think that they are safe. ²² He will quickly destroy any army that tries to attack him. He will even kill the leader of God's covenant.^{[g] 23} He will agree to be friends with other leaders. But then he will deceive them. He will become more and more powerful, but he will rule only a few people.

²⁴ His army will suddenly attack a region that is very rich. The king will do things that none of his ancestors did. He will take valuable things from his enemies when he fights against them. He will share those things with the men who help him. He will make plans to attack strong cities. But he will only be able to do this for a short time.

²⁵ The evil king of the north will bring together a large, strong army. He will feel brave enough to attack the king of the south. The king of the south will fight against him with an even larger and more powerful army. But the king of the south will not be able to win the battle. His own men will turn against him. ²⁶ Even those who eat the king's food will try to kill him. Many of his soldiers will die in the battle. His army will run away.

²⁷ These two kings will sit at the same table to make plans. But they will deceive each other with evil lies. Their plans will be useless. God has already decided when their time as kings will finish.

²⁸ Then the king of the north will return to his own country. He will take many valuable things with him. As he returns, he will cause trouble for the people who obey God's covenant. He will do whatever he wants to do against them. Then he will continue his journey back to his own country.^[h]

²⁹ At the time that God chooses, the king will attack the south again. This time the result will be different from the first time. ³⁰ People will come in ships from the west to attack him. He will be afraid and he will turn back. He will be angry as he travels home. So he will cause more trouble for the people who obey God's covenant. He will give honour to those people who turn away from the holy covenant. ³¹ He will send his soldiers to attack Jerusalem's strong place. They will go into the holy place of the temple and they will make it unclean. They will stop people from offering the sacrifices each day. They will put a disgusting thing that causes trouble in the holy place. ³² The king will deceive the people who are no longer faithful to God. He will make them help him. But the people who are still faithful to God will work hard to stop him.

³³ Wise Israelite leaders will teach many other people. But these teachers will suffer for some time. People will kill them in battle, or with fire. People will rob them. People will put some of them in prison. ³⁴ When God's people are in a time of trouble, they will receive a little help. Many people will join them who are not their true friends. ³⁵ Some of the wise leaders will suffer. As a result, God will make them clean and pure. This will continue until the time for the end. God has decided when that time will come.

⁷ My little children, do not let anyone deceive you about sin. It is people who live in a good way that God accepts as right. In the same way, Jesus did only what is good and right. ⁸ People who continue to do wrong things show that they belong to the Devil. The Devil has always been doing wrong things from the beginning. This is why the Son of God came to the world. He came to destroy everything that the Devil has done.

⁹ Everybody who is a child of God does not continue to do wrong things. This is because God has given them a new life. He has caused them to become his children. So they cannot continue to do wrong things. ¹⁰ In this way, we can see clearly who are God's children and who are the Devil's children. Anyone who does not live in a way that is good and right does not belong to God. People like that do not love other believers.

Christians must love one another

¹¹ Yes, we must love one another. That is the message which you have heard from the beginning. ¹² We should not be like Cain. He belonged to Satan and he even killed his brother, Abel. Why did he do that? Cain did bad things and he killed Abel because Abel did things that were right.

¹³ So, my Christian friends, do not be surprised when people who belong to this world hate you.

¹⁴ We know that we now have new life with God. Death no longer has power over us. We know this because we love our Christian friends. But anyone who does not love other believers is still under the power of death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates other believers is like someone who murders other people. You know that a person like that does not have true life with God.

¹⁶ This is how we know what true love is: Jesus Christ gave his own life on the cross. He died on our behalf. So we too ought to give our lives for other believers. ¹⁷ When another believer has trouble, we need to be kind to him. Maybe you have all the things that you need to live. If you see another believer who needs things like that, you should help him. If you refuse to be kind to him, it shows that you do not belong to God. You do not love people in the way that God loves them.^[a]

¹⁸ My little children, we should not show love for each other only by what we say. We should also show true love by the things that we do. ¹⁹ Then we will know that we truly belong to God. We will be obeying God's true message. As a result, our thoughts will not make us ashamed to come to God. ²⁰ Even if our thoughts tell us that we have done something wrong, we still will not be afraid of God. We can trust God more than we trust our thoughts. He already knows everything about us.

²¹ My friends, if our thoughts do not tell us that we are guilty, we will not be afraid to come to God. ²² We can pray to God and we can ask him to help us. He will give us what we ask him for. That is because we obey his commands and we do the things that please him. ²³ This is God's command to us: we must believe that Jesus Christ is his Son. And we must love each other, as Jesus commanded us. ²⁴ Anyone who obeys God's commands lives together with God. God also lives in him. How do we know that God lives in us? It is because of his Holy Spirit that he has given to us.

A song to sing as we climb.

David wrote this song.