34 As you looked, a Stone was cut out without human hands, which smote the image on its feet of iron and [baked] clay [of the potter] and broke them to pieces. [I Pet. 2:3-8.]
35 Then the iron, the [baked] clay [of the potter], the bronze, the silver, and the gold were broken and crushed together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them could be found. And the Stone that smote the image became a great mountain or rock and filled the whole earth.
36 This was the dream, and we will tell the interpretation of it to the king.
37 You, O king, are king of the [earthly] kings to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, and the glory. [Jer. 25:9; 27:6; 28:14.]
38 And wherever the children of men dwell, and the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens–He has given them into your hand and has made you to rule over them all. You [king of Babylon] are the head of gold.
39 And after you shall arise another kingdom [the Medo-Persian], inferior to you, and still a third kingdom of bronze [Greece under Alexander the Great] which shall bear rule over all the earth.
40 And the fourth kingdom [Rome] shall be strong as iron, since iron breaks to pieces and subdues all things; and like iron which crushes, it shall break and crush all these. [Dan. 7:7, 23.]