(SEE 19:1)

You will break them with an iron rod; you will shatter them in pieces like a clay pot.' "

May the king judge the poor fairly; may he help the needy and defeat their oppressors.

They crush your people, LORD; they oppress those who belong to you.

The LORD says, "Babylonia, you are my hammer, my weapon of war. I used you to crush nations and kingdoms,

to kill men and women, to slay old and young, to kill boys and girls,

He controls the times and the seasons; he makes and unmakes kings; it is he who gives wisdom and understanding.

While you were looking at it, a great stone broke loose from a cliff without anyone touching it, struck the iron and clay feet of the statue, and shattered them.

At once the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold crumbled and became like the dust on a threshing place in summer. The wind carried it all away, leaving not a trace. But the stone grew to be a mountain that covered the whole earth.

At the time of those rulers the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that will never end. It will never be conquered, but will completely destroy all those empires and then last forever.

You saw how a stone broke loose from a cliff without anyone touching it and how it struck the statue made of iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God is telling Your Majesty what will happen in the future. I have told you exactly what you dreamed, and have given you its true meaning."

I, the LORD God of Israel, promised in the past that your family and your clan would serve me as priests for all time. But now I say that I won't have it any longer! Instead, I will honor those who honor me, and I will treat with contempt those who despise me.

You will be troubled and look with envy on all the blessings I will give to the other people of Israel, but no one in your family will ever again live to old age.

When your two sons Hophni and Phinehas both die on the same day, this will show you that everything I have said will come true.

Any of your descendants who survive will have to go to that priest and ask him for money and food, and beg to be allowed to help the priests, in order to have something to eat."

Samuel said to him, "The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel away from you today and given it to someone who is a better man than you.

Go and tell Jeroboam that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to him: 'I chose you from among the people and made you the ruler of my people Israel.

I took the kingdom away from David's descendants and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David, who was completely loyal to me, obeyed my commands, and did only what I approve of.

The LORD is going to place a king over Israel who will put an end to Jeroboam's dynasty.

He raises the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from their misery

and makes them companions of princes, the princes of his people.

divisions, your kingdom is divided up and given to the Medes and Persians."

That same night Belshazzar, the king of Babylonia, was killed;