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Judges / Gideon's 300 and the Defeat of Midian
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Gideon's 300 and the Defeat of Midian

Judges 7:1-25

7
Chapter 7
1 And Jerubbaal—that is Gideon—rose early, and all the people who were with him, and they encamped above En-harod. And the camp of Midian was to him from the north, from the hill of Moreh in the valley. 2 And the LORD said to Gideon, "The people who are with you are too many; I will not give Midian into their hand, lest Israel boast against me, saying, 'My hand saved me.'" 3 And now please proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, "Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead." And twenty-two thousand returned from the people, and ten thousand remained. 4 And the LORD said to Gideon, "The people are still many. Bring them down to the waters, and I will sift them for you there. And it will be: whoever says to you, 'This one—he will go with you,' he will go with you; and everyone whom he says to you, 'This one will not go with you,' he will not go." 5 He brought the people down to the water, and the LORD said to Gideon, "Everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, set him apart by himself. And everyone who kneels on his knees to drink." 6 The number of those who lapped with their hand to their mouth was three hundred men, and all the rest of the people knelt on their knees to drink water. 7 And the LORD said to Gideon, "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and I will give Midian into your hand. And all the people shall go, each man to his place." 8 And the people took their provisions in their hands and their trumpets. And he sent every man of Israel, each man to his tent, and he held fast to the three hundred men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. 9 That night the LORD said to him, "Rise, go down into the camp, for I have given it into your hand." 10 If you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp—you and Pura your servant. 11 And you will hear what they speak, and afterward your hands will be strengthened, and you will go down to the camp. And he went down, he and Purah his servant, to the edge of the fifty who were in the camp. 12 And Midian and Amalek and all the sons of the East lay in the valley like locusts for multitude, and their camels had no number, like the sand that is on the lip of the sea for multitude. 13 And Gideon came, and behold—a man telling his companion a dream. And he said, “Behold, a dream I have dreamed, and behold a barley bread loaf tumbling in the camp of Midian. And it came as far as the tent and struck it, and it fell and turned it upward, and the tent fell.” 14 His companion answered and said, “This is nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand.” 15 And when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he prostrated himself and returned to the camp of Israel and said, "Rise up, for the LORD has given the camp of Midian into your hand." 16 He divided the three hundred men into three companies and put shofars in the hand of all of them, with empty jars and torches inside the jars. 17 And he said to them, "You shall see what I do, and so you shall do. And look, I am coming to the edge of the camp, and it shall be, as I do, so you shall do." 18 And I will blow the ram's horn, I and all who are with me, and you will blow the ram's horns also, you all around all the camp, and you will say, "For the LORD and for Gideon." 19 Gideon and the hundred men with him came to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just as the guards were being set. They blew the shofars and shattered the jars that were in their hands. 20 The three leaders blew the shofars, broke the jars, grasped the torches in their left hands and the shofars in their right hands to blow them, and called out, "A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!" 21 They stood, each man in his place, around the camp. And the whole camp ran; they shouted and fled. 22 And the three hundred trumpets sounded, and the LORD put the sword of a man against his neighbor in all the camp, and the camp fled as far as Beth-shittah near Zererah, as far as the lip of Abel-meholah over Tabbath. 23 And the men of Israel cried out from Naphtali and from Asher and from all of Manasseh, and they pursued Midian. 24 And Gideon sent messengers throughout all Mount Ephraim, saying, "Go down to meet Midian and capture the waters as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan for them." And every man of Ephraim cried out, and they captured the waters as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan. 25 And they captured two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. And they killed Oreb at the Rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the Winepress of Zeeb. And they pursued toward Midian, and they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon beyond the Jordan.