³ Now, therefore, proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.’ ” Thus Gideon sifted them out;^[a] twenty-two thousand returned, and ten thousand remained.^(A)

⁸ So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel back to their own tents but retained the three hundred. The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.