³ So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the ^(A)people of the East would come up against them. ⁴ Then they would encamp against them and ^(B)destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ^(C)donkey. ⁵ For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were ^[a]without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it. ⁶ So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel ^(D)cried out to the Lord.

³³ A nation whom you have not known shall eat ^(A)the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually.

³¹ Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them.

⁵ “Say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On the day when ^(A)I chose Israel and raised My hand in an oath to the descendants of the house of Jacob, and made Myself ^(B)known to them in the land of Egypt, I raised My hand in an oath to them, saying, ^(C)‘I am the Lord your God.’