³⁶ Gideon said to God, “If you will save^(A) Israel by my hand as you have promised—

¹⁴ The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have^(A) and save^(B) Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

The Demand for a Sign^(A)

16 The Pharisees and Sadducees^(B) came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.^(C)

⁹ Isaiah answered, “This is the Lord’s sign^(A) to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?”

¹⁷ Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign^(A) that it is really you talking to me. ¹⁸ Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”

And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.”

¹⁹ Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat,^(B) and from an ephah^[a](C) of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.^(D)

²⁰ The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock,^(E) and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so.

Signs for Moses

4 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen^(A) to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”

² Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,”^(B) he replied.

³ The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake,^(C) and he ran from it. ⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ⁵ “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe^(D) that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

⁶ Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous^[a]—it had become as white as snow.^(E)

⁷ “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored,^(F) like the rest of his flesh.

⁸ Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe^(G) you or pay attention to the first sign,^(H) they may believe the second. ⁹ But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood^(I) on the ground.”