Judges 6:7-16

English Standard Version

⁷ When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, ⁸ the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ^(A)I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. ⁹ And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and ^(B)drove them out before you and gave you their land. ¹⁰ And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; ^(C)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

¹¹ Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash ^(D)the Abiezrite, while his son ^(E)Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. ¹² And ^(F)the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ^(G)“The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” ¹³ 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 ^(H)all his wonderful deeds ^(I)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.” ¹⁴ And the Lord^[a] turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; ^(J)do not I send you?” ¹⁵ And he said to him, ^(K)“Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, ^(L)my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” ¹⁶ And the Lord said to him, ^(M)“But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”