Hey, this is Shelby and CJ. We're walking you through the book of judges. We're in chapters

seven through nine today. A lot of action in the first six chapters that we've covered in a lot

more to come today. So we left off our reading yesterday with Gideon. We're going to kind of wrap up his

story today, right, C.J.? It's exactly right. So we left off with Gideon and the fleece,

and now we're at the cusp of battle where he's going to actually secure salvation from those

who are oppressing Israel. But again, being Gideon, he's still a little cowardly. So they're on the cusp of battle

and God says, well, you know, you're afraid and you have a lot of troops. So I actually want to

whittle down all these troops you have and I only want to save Israel using a really, really small

number of soldiers so that I get all the gloria and say that you guys don't think you did it yourself.

So what started out is 22,000 soldiers is whittled down to 300.

Which is wild, by the way, from 22,000 down to 300.

But again, Gideon's still afraid, so he sneaks down to the camp.

God instructs him to sneak down to the camp of the enemies,

and he overhears someone recounted dream they had where they were destroyed. And someone says, oh, that must be Gideon. So I think

this probably puffs up Gideon, and he feels like, okay, I can actually secure a victory for the people.

Okay, so then does everything turn out all right? Is Gideon, like, confident and ready to go into

battle now?

Well, they win the battle. He routes the enemies, but then there's sort of some internal conflict

between Israelites. The Ephraimites, another tribe of Israel, they are bothered that Gideon didn't

invite them to come down and take part in the battle. So then Gideon, he goes and he's

chasing these remaining Midianites, and a few of the Israelites cities are unwilling to give him

food and help him out because they don't really know where the battle's going to go. Is Israel going

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