⁷ Then the Lord said to Gideon, ^(A)“By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his ^[a]place.” ⁸ So the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands. And he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those three hundred men. Now the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

⁹ It happened on the same ^(B)night that the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand. ¹⁰ But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, ¹¹ and you shall ^(C)hear what they say; and afterward ^[b]your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp. ¹² Now the Midianites and Amalekites, ^(D)all the people of the East, were lying in the valley ^(E)as numerous as locusts; and their camels were ^[c]without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude.

¹³ And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, “I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.”

¹⁴ Then his companion answered and said, “This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand ^(F)God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.”

¹⁵ And so it was, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel, and said, “Arise, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.” ¹⁶ Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers. ¹⁷ And he said to them, “Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of the camp you shall do as I do: ¹⁸ When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’ ”

¹⁹ So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just as they had posted the watch; and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands. ²⁰ Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers—they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing—and they cried, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” ²¹ And ^(G)every man stood in his place all around the camp; ^(H)and the whole army ran and cried out and fled. ²² When the three hundred ^(I)blew the trumpets, ^(J)the Lord set ^(K)every man’s sword against his companion throughout the whole camp; and the army fled to ^[d]Beth Acacia, toward Zererah, as far as the border of ^(L)Abel Meholah, by Tabbath.

²³ And the men of Israel gathered together from ^(M)Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh, and pursued the Midianites.

²⁴ Then Gideon sent messengers throughout all the ^(N)mountains of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites, and seize from them the watering places as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan.” Then all the men of Ephraim gathered together and ^(O)seized the watering places as far as ^(P)Beth Barah and the Jordan. ²⁵ And they captured ^(Q)two princes of the Midianites, ^(R)Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued Midian and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the ^(S)other side of the Jordan.

Gideon Subdues the Midianites

8 Now ^(T)the men of Ephraim said to him, “Why have you done this to us by not calling us when you went to fight with the Midianites?” And they reprimanded him sharply.

² So he said to them, “What have I done now in comparison with you? Is not the ^[e]gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than ^[f]the vintage of ^(U)Abiezer? ^3 (V)God has delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. And what was I able to do in comparison with you?” Then their ^(W)anger toward him subsided when he said that.

⁴ When Gideon came ^(X)to the Jordan, he and ^(Y)the three hundred men who were with him crossed over, exhausted but still in pursuit. ⁵ Then he said to the men of ^(Z)Succoth, “Please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me, for they are exhausted, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, kings of Midian.”

⁶ And the leaders of Succoth said, ^(AA)“Are^[g] the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that ^(AB)we should give bread to your army?”

⁷ So Gideon said, “For this cause, when the Lord has delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, ^(AC)then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers!”