Judges chapter 6 Midian oppresses Israel

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 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 in their tents, and they would come up like locust in 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.

The Call of Gideon

Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the Tarabinth at Ophra, which belonged to Joash, the Abiyazirite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine-press to hide it from the Midianites, and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. And Gideon said to him, please, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this

happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us,

saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us

into the hand of Midian. And the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian.

Do not I send you? And he said to him, please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.

And the Lord said to him, but I will be with you and

you shall strike the Midianites as one man. And he said to him, If now I have found favor

in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from

here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you. And he said, I will stay till you return.

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