Today is the 26th day of April. Welcome to the daily audio Bible. It's great to be here with you today.

Just like every day. Glad to be in this rhythm of showing up for ourselves and each other every day.

I'm grateful for this day of showing up for each other.

I'm glad to take the next step forward together with you

as we bring another one of our weeks to a conclusion

and take the next step forward, working our way into and through the book of

judges at this point. And we're going to spend some time with a judge named Gideon, which is a

really dramatic story, very counterintuitive story.

That actually ends up being a really tragic story as well.

But it is a story in the Bible and we are reading all of it,

taking it all within us, reflecting upon all of it, applying it to our own stories.

So I'm grateful for the next step forward today.

Judges Chapter 6 The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight.

So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years.

The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds.

Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the East would attack Israel,

camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza.

They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys.

These enemy hordes coming with their livestock in tents were as thick as locusts.

They arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count, and they stayed until the land was stripped bare.

So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. And the Israelites cried

out to the Lord for help. When they cried out to the Lord because of Midian, the Lord sent a prophet

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