Judges 6

₁The Israelites did bad things that the Lord said were wrong. Then the Lord sent the Midianite people to oppress the Israelites for 7 years. ₂The Midianites did very bad things to the Israelites, and they suffered a lot. The Israelites tried to hide their food and things so that the Amalekite people could not take them. They hid them in caves and in the mountains where other people could not see them. ₃They did this because the Midianites, the Amalekites and people of the East came each time after the Israelites had planted their wheat. ₄Then the Midianites put up their tents and they destroyed everything in the land up to the town of Gaza. They did not leave anything for the Israelites to eat. They took their sheep, their cattle and their donkeys. ₅The Midian people and other enemies came with their own sheep, goats and animals and they put up their tents in the land. They and their camels were too many to count. They were like locusts that came and ate all the food and destroyed the land.

₆The Israelites became very poor because the Midianites and the other enemies took everything that they had. Then the Israelites prayed to God and asked Him to help them. ₇When they prayed to the Lord, ₈He sent a prophet to them. The prophet told them: ‘The Lord God of Israel says: “I have brought you from Egypt where you were slaves. ₉I have saved you from the people of Egypt and from all the people in this land who made you suffer. I have chased away these people so that I could give their land to you. ₁₀I told you: I am the Lord your God. You live in the land of the Amorites but you must not worship the gods of the Amorites. But you did not listen to Me.” ’

₁₁Joash was from the Abiezer family. He lived in the town of Ophrah and he had a son, Gideon. Gideon was threshing wheat in his father's wine-press so that the Midianites could not see him. The Angel_of_the_Lord came and He sat near Gideon under the big tree. ₁₂The Angel_of_the_Lord said to him: ‘You are a good soldier and the Lord is with you.’

₁₃Gideon said to the Angel_of_the_Lord: ‘Sir, if God is with us, please tell me why these bad things have happened to us. The Lord helped our fathers to go to war_against their enemies and defeat them. They told us how God did miracles and saved them and got them out of Egypt. But now He has gone away and left us alone. He sent the Midianite people to oppress us.’

₁₄The Lord looked at Gideon and He said to him: ‘You are strong, and you must save Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you to do this.’ ₁₅Gideon said to Him: ‘Please, Lord, I can not save the Israelites. My family is the smallest of the families in the Manasseh tribe and I am the youngest son in my father's house.’

₁₆The Lord said to Gideon: ‘I will be with you, and that is why you will be able to do it. You will defeat the Midianites. It will be easy for you, as easy as it is when you go to war_against one man.’ ₁₇Then Gideon said to the Lord: ‘If you really are going to help me, do a miracle for me that shows that You have really talked to me. ₁₈Please do not go away from here. I want to come to You and put my gift before You.’ The Lord said: ‘I will wait until you come.’

₁₉Gideon took a goat and an ephah of flour. He cooked the meat and baked bread. There was no yeast in the flour. He put the meat in a basket and the soup in a pot and he brought it to the Lord, under the tree. ₂₀Then the Angel of God said to him: ‘Put the meat and the bread on the rock and pour the sauce over it.’ Gideon did what the Angel_of_the_Lord said ₂₁and then the Lord took his staff and He touched the meat and bread with the end of his staff. Fire came from the rock and it burnt the bread and meat. Then Gideon could no longer see the Angel_of_the_Lord. He had disappeared. ₂₂Then Gideon knew that it was the Angel_of_the_Lord and he said: ‘O Lord my God, I will die, because I really have seen the Angel_of_the_Lord. He was here with me.’ ₂₃But the Lord said to him: ‘Do not worry, and do not be afraid. You will not die.’

₂₄Gideon built an altar for the Lord and he said the name of the altar was: ‘The Lord told me not to worry’. That altar is still in the town of Ophrah where the Abiezer family lives.

₂₅That night the Lord said to Gideon: ‘You must take your father's bull, the bull that is 7 years old, and you must break down your father's Baal altar. You must cut down the sacred_pillar at the altar. ₂₆Then you must build an altar for Me, the Lord your God. You must build this altar on the highest place in this town. You must put the stones of the altar neatly on top of each other and you must take the wood of the sacred_pillar that you broke down. Make a fire from that wood and sacrifice the bull on the altar.’

₂₇Gideon took 10 of his servants and he did what the Lord had told him to do. He was afraid of his father's family and the people of the town, so he did it at night, not in the day. ₂₈When the people of the town got up the next morning, they saw that someone had broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the sacred_pillar, and built a new altar and sacrificed the bull. ₂₉They asked each other: ‘Who did this?’ Then someone told them that it was Gideon, the son of Joash, who had done it.

₃₀The people of the town said to Joash: ‘You must bring your son. He must die because he has broken down the altar of Baal and the sacred_pillar near the altar.’ ₃₁Joash said to all the people who came to him: ‘Do you want to protect Baal? Do you want to save him? The person who wants to protect Baal will die tomorrow. If Baal is a god, then he must protect himself against the man who destroyed his altar.’

₃₂On that day Joash said that Gideon's name would be Jerub-Baal. It means ‘Baal must fight for himself’.

₃₃All the Midianite people and the Amalekites and people of the East came together and they went over the Jordan River. They put up their tents in the Jezreel Valley. ₃₄Then the Spirit_of_the_Lord came into Gideon. He blew the ram's-horn and called the Abiezer family to come with him and to help him. ₃₅He sent messengers to everyone in the Manasseh tribe and he also called them to come and help him. He also sent messengers to the Asher tribe, the Zebulun tribe and the Naphtali tribe and they all came to Gideon.

₃₆Gideon said to God: ‘You said you want to use me to save the Israelites. ₃₇I will take a sheepskin and put it out on the threshing-floor. Tomorrow morning, if only the wool is wet from the dew and the ground is dry, then I will know that You want to use me to save the Israelites, as You have said.’

₃₈That is what happened. When Gideon got up the next morning, there was enough dew on the sheepskin to fill a bowl. ₃₉But Gideon said to God: ‘Please don't be angry with me but I want to ask You one more thing and test You again. This time, can You please make the ground wet with dew, but keep the sheepskin dry?’

₄₀That night God did what Gideon asked. The sheepskin was dry and there was dew on the ground.