A reading from the book of judges.

The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,

and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years,

and the hand of Midian overpowered Israel,

and because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens

that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.

For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the

Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east would come up

against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza,

and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey, for they would come up with

their livestock and their tents.

They would come like locust and number. Both they and their camels could not be counted,

so that they laid waste the land as they came in, and Israel was brought very low because of Midian,

and the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord. When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites,

the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel, and he said to them,

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the

house of slavery, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all

who oppressed you,

and drove them out before you, and gave you their land. And I 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 obeyed my

voice. Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terriban at Ophra, which belonged to Joas the Abyswright,

while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine-press to hide it from the Midianites.

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