Daniel 8:1-14

During the third year of King Belshazzar’s rule, I, Daniel, saw another vision, which was like the first one. In this vision I saw myself in the capital city of Susa, in the area of Elam. I was standing by the Ulai Canal when I looked up and saw a male sheep standing beside the canal. It had two long horns, but one horn was longer and newer than the other. I watched the sheep charge to the west, the north, and the south. No animal could stand before him, and none could save another animal from his power. He did whatever he wanted and became very powerful. While I was watching this, I saw a male goat come from the west. This goat had one large horn between his eyes that was easy to see. He crossed over the whole earth so fast that his feet hardly touched the ground. In his anger the goat charged the sheep with the two horns that I had seen standing by the canal. I watched the angry goat attack the sheep and break the sheep’s two horns. The sheep was not strong enough to stop it. The goat knocked the sheep to the ground and then walked all over him. No one was able to save the sheep from the goat, so the male goat became very great. But when he was strong, his big horn broke off and four horns grew in place of the one big horn. Those four horns pointed in four different directions and were easy to see. Then a little horn grew from one of those four horns, and it became very big. It grew to the south, the east, and toward the beautiful land of Judah. That little horn grew until it reached to the sky. It even threw some of the army of heaven to the ground and walked on them! That little horn set itself up as equal to God, the Commander of heaven’s armies. It stopped the daily sacrifices that were offered to him, and the Temple, the place where people worshiped him, was pulled down. Because there was a turning away from God, the people stopped the daily sacrifices. Truth was thrown down to the ground, and the horn was successful in everything it did. Then I heard a holy angel speaking. Another holy angel asked the first one, “How long will the things in this vision last—the daily sacrifices, the turning away from God that brings destruction, the Temple being pulled down, and the army of heaven being walked on?” The angel said to me, “This will happen for twenty-three hundred evenings and mornings. Then the holy place will be repaired.”