³ That’s why you’re to ask in full view of the soldiers, “Whoever is afraid or is trembling may go back from Mount Gilead and return home.”^[a] So 22,000 soldiers left and 10,000 remained.

⁴ “There are still too many soldiers,” the Lord told Gideon. “Bring them down to the water and I’ll refine them for you there. Therefore when I say to you, ‘This one will be going with you,’ he’ll go with you, but no one may go about whom I tell you, ‘This one won’t be going with you.’”

⁵ So he brought his soldiers down to the water, and the Lord told Gideon, “You are to cull out everyone who laps up water with his tongue like a dog from everyone who kneels to drink.”