Judges 6:1–27
6 Then the children of Israel did aevil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of bMidian for seven years, 2 and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, cthe caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. 3 So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the dpeople of the East would come up against them. 4 Then they would encamp against them and edestroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor fdonkey. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were 1without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it. 6 So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel gcried out to the Lord.
7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites, 8 that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the hhouse of 2bondage; 9 and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and idrove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 Also I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; jdo not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not obeyed My kvoice.’ ”
11 Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash lthe Abiezrite, while his son mGideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the nAngel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is owith you, you mighty man of valor!”
13 Gideon said to Him, “O 3my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And pwhere are all His miracles qwhich our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has rforsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, s“Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. tHave I not sent you?”
15 So he said to Him, “O 4my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed umy clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16 And the Lord said to him, v“Surely I will be with you, and you shall 5defeat the Midianites as one man.”
17 Then he said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then wshow me a sign that it is You who talk with me. 18 xDo not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.”
And He said, “I will wait until you come back.”
19 ySo Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot; and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them. 20 The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and zlay them on this rock, and apour out the broth.” And he did so.
21 Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and bfire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
22 Now Gideon cperceived that He was the Angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! dFor I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.”
23 Then the Lord said to him, e“Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.” 24 So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it 6The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still fin Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
25 Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and gtear down the altar of hBaal that your father has, and icut down the 7wooden image that is beside it; 26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this 8rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.” 27 So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night.