Gideon Defeats Midian

7 Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the troops with him got up early and camped above En Harod. Midian’s camp was north of him at the hill of Moreh in the valley.

² The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men with you for me to hand Midian over to you. Israel might brag and say, ‘We saved ourselves.’ ³ Announce to the troops, ‘Whoever is scared or frightened should leave Mount Gilead and go back home.’ ” So 22,000 men went back home, and 10,000 were left.

⁴ The Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. If I say to you, ‘This one will go with you,’ he must go with you. And if I say to you, ‘This one won’t go with you,’ he must not go.”

⁵ So Gideon took the men down to the water. The Lord said to him, “Separate those who lap water with their tongues like dogs from those who kneel down to drink.” ⁶ Three hundred men lapped water with their hands to their mouths. All the rest of the men knelt down to drink water. ⁷ Then the Lord said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped water I will save you and hand Midian over to you. All the other men should go home.” ⁸ So Gideon sent the other men of Israel home, but the 300 men who stayed kept all the supplies and rams’ horns.

The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

⁹ That night the Lord said to Gideon, “Attack! Go into the camp! I will hand it over to you. ¹⁰ But if you’re afraid to go, take your servant Purah to the camp with you. ¹¹ Listen to what people are saying. After that, you will have the courage to go into the camp and attack it.”

So Gideon and his servant Purah went to the edge of the camp. ¹² Midian, Amalek, and all of Kedem were spread out in the valley like a swarm of locusts. There were so many camels that they could not be counted. They were as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore.

¹³ When Gideon got there, he heard a man telling his friend a dream. The man said, “I had a strange dream. There was a loaf of barley bread rolling around in the camp of Midian. When it got to the command post, the loaf of bread hit that tent so hard that the tent collapsed, turned upside down, and fell flat.”

¹⁴ His friend replied, “That can only be the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, from Israel. God is going to hand Midian and the whole camp over to him.”

¹⁵ When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped the Lord. Then he went back to the camp of Israel and said, “Attack! The Lord will hand Midian’s camp over to you.”

¹⁶ Gideon divided the 300 men into three companies. He gave them each rams’ horns and jars with torches inside. ¹⁷ He said to them, “Watch me, and do what I do. When I come to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. ¹⁸ When I and those with me blow our rams’ horns, then the rest of you around the camp do the same and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’ ”

¹⁹ Gideon and his 100 men came to the edge of the camp. It was the beginning of the midnight watch just at the change of the guards. They blew their rams’ horns and smashed the jars they were holding in their hands. ²⁰ The three companies also blew their rams’ horns and broke their jars. They held the torches in their left hands and the rams’ horns in their right hands so that they could blow them. They shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” ²¹ While each man kept his position around the camp, everyone in the Midianite camp began to run away, screaming as they fled. ²² The 300 men kept on blowing their rams’ horns, and the Lord caused the whole camp of Midian to fight among themselves. They fled as far as Beth Shittah, toward Zererah, and as far as the bank of the stream at Abel Meholah near Tabbath.

²³ The men of Israel were summoned from Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh to help pursue the troops of Midian.

Greeting

1 From Paul—an apostle ⌞chosen⌟ not by any group or individual but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who brought him back to life— ² and all the believers who are with me.

To the churches in Galatia.

³ Good will ^[a] and peace are yours from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! ⁴ In order to free us from this present evil world, Christ took the punishment for our sins, because that was what our God and Father wanted. ⁵ Glory belongs to our God and Father forever! Amen.

Follow the Good News We Gave You

⁶ I’m surprised that you’re so quickly deserting Christ, who called you in his kindness,^[b] to follow a different kind of good news. ⁷ But what some people are calling good news is not really good news at all. They are confusing you. They want to distort the Good News about Christ. ⁸ Whoever tells you good news that is different from the Good News we gave you should be condemned to hell, even if he is one of us or an angel from heaven. ⁹ I’m now telling you again what we’ve told you in the past: If anyone tells you good news that is different from the Good News you received, that person should be condemned to hell.

¹⁰ Am I saying this now to win the approval of people or God? Am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.

Jesus Alone Gave Paul the Good News He Spreads

¹¹ I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Good News I have spread is not a human message. ¹² I didn’t receive it from any person. I wasn’t taught it, but Jesus Christ revealed it to me.

¹³ You heard about the way I once lived when I followed the Jewish religion. You heard how I violently persecuted God’s church and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴ You also heard how I was far ahead of other Jews in my age group in following the Jewish religion. I had become that fanatical for the traditions of my ancestors.

¹⁵ But God, who appointed me before I was born and who called me by his kindness, was pleased ¹⁶ to show me his Son. He did this so that I would tell people who are not Jewish that his Son is the Good News. When this happened, I didn’t talk it over with any other person. ¹⁷ I didn’t even go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went to Arabia and then came back to Damascus.

¹⁸ Then, three years later I went to Jerusalem to become personally acquainted with Cephas.^[c] I stayed with him for fifteen days. ¹⁹ I didn’t see any other apostle. I only saw James, the Lord’s brother. ²⁰ (God is my witness that what I’m writing is not a lie.) ²¹ Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ²² The churches of Christ in Judea didn’t know me personally. ²³ The only thing they had heard was this: “The man who persecuted us is now spreading the faith that he once tried to destroy.” ²⁴ So they praised God for what had happened to me.