Daniel

Daniel is set among the Jewish exiles in the courts of Babylon and Persia. Its first half tells beloved stories of faith under pressure — Daniel and his friends refusing the king's food, the fiery furnace, the writing on the wall, the lions' den — showing God's sovereignty over the greatest empires.

Its second half turns to apocalyptic visions of successive kingdoms and the coming of 'one like a son of man' given everlasting dominion (chapter 7). A book about staying faithful when the world is against you, Daniel shaped later Jewish and Christian hope and is echoed throughout the New Testament, especially in Revelation.