³⁶ Just as the sun was setting, the cry ran through his troops: “We’re done for! Run for your lives!”

¹² Judah was routed by the army of Israel, and its army scattered and fled for home.

³¹ Meanwhile, the king of Aram had issued these orders to his thirty-two chariot commanders: “Attack only the king of Israel. Don’t bother with anyone else!”

¹⁷ Then Micaiah told him, “In a vision I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep without a shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘Their master has been killed.^[a] Send them home in peace.’”

²⁴ ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not fight against your relatives, the Israelites. Go back home, for what has happened is my doing!’” So they obeyed the message of the Lord and went home, as the Lord had commanded.

¹⁶ When all Israel realized that the king had refused to listen to them, they responded,

So the people of Israel returned home.

⁸ So the king went out and took his seat at the town gate, and as the news spread throughout the town that he was there, everyone went to him.

Meanwhile, the Israelites who had supported Absalom fled to their homes.

¹⁰ So the Philistines fought desperately, and Israel was defeated again. The slaughter was great; 30,000 Israelite soldiers died that day. The survivors turned and fled to their tents.

²⁴ Then the people of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes.

⁷ The Lord told Gideon, “With these 300 men I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites. Send all the others home.” ⁸ So Gideon collected the provisions and rams’ horns of the other warriors and sent them home. But he kept the 300 men with him.

The Midianite camp was in the valley just below Gideon.