The Lord Calls Gideon

¹¹ The angel of the Lord^(A) came, and he sat under the oak that was in Ophrah,^(B) which belonged to Joash, the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites. ¹² Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, valiant warrior.”^(C)

¹³ Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened? And where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about? They said, ‘Hasn’t the Lord brought us out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

¹⁴ The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the grasp of Midian. I am sending you!” ^(D)

¹⁵ He said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Look, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s family.”

¹⁶ “But I will be with you,”^(E) the Lord said to him. “You will strike Midian down as if it were one man.”

²² When Gideon realized that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, “Oh no, Lord God!^(A) I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” ^(B)

²³ But the Lord said to him, “Peace to you. Don’t be afraid, for you will not die.” ²⁴ So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace.^[a] It is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites today.

Gideon Tears Down a Baal Altar

²⁵ On that very night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull and a second bull seven years old. Then tear down the altar of Baal^(C) that belongs to your father and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. ²⁶ Build a well-constructed altar to the Lord your God on the top of this mound.^(D) Take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah pole you cut down.” ²⁷ So Gideon took ten of his male servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his father’s family and the men of the city to do it in the daytime, he did it at night.