Judges 6:5-19

⁵For they came up with their livestock and their tents. They came in as locusts for multitude. Both they and their camels were without number; and they came into the land to destroy it.

⁶Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the children of Israel cried to the LORD.

⁷When the children of Israel cried to the LORD because of Midian,

⁸The LORD sent a prophet to the children of Israel; and he said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of bondage.

⁹I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land.

¹⁰I said to you, “I am the LORD your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not listened to my voice.’”

¹¹The LORD’s angel came and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites.

¹²The LORD’s angel appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valour!”

¹³Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”

¹⁴The LORD looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?”

¹⁵He said to him, “O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”

¹⁶The LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

¹⁷He said to him, “If now I have found favour in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me.

¹⁸Please don’t go away until I come to you, and bring out my present, and lay it before you.” He said, “I will wait until you come back.”

¹⁹Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes of an efah of meal. He put the meat in a basket and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out to him under the oak, and presented it.