Daniel 11–12 · Hosea 1–2

1“As for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to confirm and strengthen him.

2“Now I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings will stand up in Persia. The fourth will be far richer than all of them. When he has grown strong through his riches, he will stir up all against the realm of Greece.

3A mighty king will stand up, who will rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.

4When he stands up, his kingdom will be broken and will be divided toward the four winds of the sky, but not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion with which he ruled; for his kingdom will be plucked up, even for others besides these.

5“The king of the south will be strong. One of his princes will become stronger than him, and have dominion. His dominion will be a great dominion.

6At the end of years they will join themselves together; and the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make an agreement, but she will not retain the strength of her arm. He will also not stand, nor will his arm; but she will be given up, with those who brought her, and he who became the father of her, and he who strengthened her in those times.

7“But out of a shoot from her roots one will stand up in his place, who will come to the army and will enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and will deal against them and will prevail.

8He will also carry their gods with their molten images, and with their goodly vessels of silver and of gold, captive into Egypt. He will refrain some years from the king of the north.

9He will come into the realm of the king of the south, but he will return into his own land.

10His sons will wage war, and will assemble a multitude of great forces which will come on, and overflow, and pass through. They will return and wage war, even to his fortress.

11“The king of the south will be moved with anger and will come out and fight with him, even with the king of the north. He will send out a great multitude, and the multitude will be given into his hand.

12The multitude will be carried off, and his heart will be exalted. He will cast down tens of thousands, but he won’t prevail.

13The king of the north will return, and will send out a multitude greater than the former. He will come on at the end of the times, even of years, with a great army and with abundant supplies.

14“In those times many will stand up against the king of the south. Also the children of the violent among your people will lift themselves up to establish the vision, but they will fall.

15So the king of the north will come and cast up a mound, and take a well-fortified city. The forces of the south won’t stand, neither will his select troops, neither will there be any strength to stand.

16But he who comes against him will do according to his own will, and no one will stand before him. He will stand in the glorious land, and destruction will be in his hand.

17He will set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, and with him equitable conditions. He will perform them. He will give him the daughter of women, to destroy the kingdom, but she will not stand, and won’t be for him.

18After this he will turn his face to the islands, and will take many, but a prince will cause the reproach offered by him to cease. Yes, moreover, he will cause his reproach to turn on him.

19Then he will turn his face toward the fortresses of his own land; but he will stumble and fall, and won’t be found.

20“Then one who will cause a tax collector to pass through the kingdom to maintain its glory will stand up in his place; but within few days he shall be destroyed, not in anger, and not in battle.

21“In his place a contemptible person will stand up, to whom they had not given the honor of the kingdom; but he will come in time of security, and will obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

22The overwhelming forces will be overwhelmed from before him, and will be broken. Yes, also the prince of the covenant.

23After the treaty made with him he will work deceitfully; for he will come up and will become strong with few people.

24In time of security he will come even on the fattest places of the province. He will do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers. He will scatter among them prey, plunder, and wealth. Yes, he will devise his plans against the strongholds, but only for a time.

25“He will stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south will wage war in battle with an exceedingly great and mighty army, but he won’t stand; for they will devise plans against him.

26Yes, those who eat of his delicacies will destroy him, and his army will be swept away. Many will fall down slain.

27As for both these kings, their hearts will be to do evil, and they will speak lies at one table; but it won’t prosper, for the end will still be at the appointed time.

28Then he will return into his land with great wealth. His heart will be against the holy covenant. He will take action, and return to his own land.

29“He will return at the appointed time and come into the south; but it won’t be in the latter time as it was in the former.

30For ships of Kittim will come against him. Therefore he will be grieved, and will return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and will take action. He will even return, and have regard to those who forsake the holy covenant.

31“Forces from him will profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and will take away the continual burnt offering. Then they will set up the abomination that makes desolate.

32He will corrupt those who do wickedly against the covenant by flatteries; but the people who know their God will be strong and take action.

33“Those who are wise among the people will instruct many; yet they will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder, many days.

34Now when they fall, they will be helped with a little help; but many will join themselves to them with flatteries.

35Some of those who are wise will fall—to refine them, and to purify, and to make them white, even to the time of the end, because it is yet for the time appointed.

36“The king will do according to his will. He will exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and will speak marvelous things against the God of gods. He will prosper until the indignation is accomplished, for that which is determined will be done.

37He won’t regard the gods of his fathers, or the desire of women, or regard any god; for he will magnify himself above all.

38But in their place, he will honor the god of fortresses. He will honor a god whom his fathers didn’t know with gold, silver, and with precious stones and pleasant things.

39He will deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a foreign god. He will increase with glory whoever acknowledges him. He will cause them to rule over many, and will divide the land for a price.

40“At the time of the end the king of the south will contend with him; and the king of the north will come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, with horsemen, and with many ships. He will enter into the countries, and will overflow and pass through.

41He will enter also into the glorious land, and many countries will be overthrown; but these will be delivered out of his hand: Edom, Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

42He will also stretch out his hand on the countries. The land of Egypt won’t escape.

43But he will have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt. The Libyans and the Ethiopians will follow his steps.

44But news out of the east and out of the north will trouble him; and he will go out with great fury to destroy and utterly to sweep away many.

45He will plant 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.

1“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.

2Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

3Those 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.

4But 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.”

5Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on the river bank on this side, and the other on the river bank on that side.

6One said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “How long will it be to the end of these wonders?”

7I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.

8I heard, but I didn’t understand. Then I said, “My lord, what will be the outcome of these things?”

9He said, “Go your way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.

10Many will purify themselves, and make themselves white, and be refined, but the wicked will do wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.

11“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.

12Blessed is he who waits, and comes to the one thousand three hundred thirty-five days.

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

1Yahweh’s word that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

2When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh.”

3So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son.

4Yahweh said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.

5It will happen in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

6She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, “Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them.

7But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Yahweh their God, and will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.”

8Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.

9He said, “Call his name Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I will not be yours.

10Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

11The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Jezreel.

1“Say to your brothers, ‘My people!’ and to your sisters, ‘My loved one!’

2Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

3lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

4Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy, for they are children of unfaithfulness.

5For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

6Therefore behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can’t find her way.

7She will follow after her lovers, but she won’t overtake them; and she will seek them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.’

8For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

9Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

10Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.

11I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.

12I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me,’ and I will make them a forest, and the animals of the field shall eat them.

13I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers and forgot me,” says Yahweh.

14“Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

15I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16It will be in that day,” says Yahweh, “that you will call me ‘my husband,’ and no longer call me ‘my master.’

17For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.

18In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie down safely.

19I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion.

20I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh.

21It will happen in that day, that I will respond,” says Yahweh. “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth;

22and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Jezreel.

23I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, ‘You are my people;’ and they will say, ‘You are My God!’”