God Chooses Gideon’s 300 Soldiers

7 Then Jerubbaal, also known as Gideon, got up early along with all of his soldiers. They encamped near the Harod Spring. The Midian encampment lay in the valley to their north, near the hill of Moreh. ² The Lord told Gideon, “You have too many soldiers with you for me to drop Midian into their hands, because Israel would become arrogant and say, ‘It was my own abilities that delivered me.’ ³ That’s why you’re to ask in full view of the soldiers, “Whoever is afraid or is trembling may go back from Mount Gilead and return home.”^[a] So 22,000 soldiers left and 10,000 remained.

⁴ “There are still too many soldiers,” the Lord told Gideon. “Bring them down to the water and I’ll refine them for you there. Therefore when I say to you, ‘This one will be going with you,’ he’ll go with you, but no one may go about whom I tell you, ‘This one won’t be going with you.’”

⁵ So he brought his soldiers down to the water, and the Lord told Gideon, “You are to cull out everyone who laps up water with his tongue like a dog from everyone who kneels to drink.” ⁶ The contingent of soldiers who lapped water^[b] with their hands to their mouths numbered 300 men, but everyone else kneeled to drink water.

⁷ Then the Lord told Gideon, “I’m going to deliver you with the 300 soldiers who lapped by giving the Midianites into your control. Send everyone else back to their own homes.”^[c]

⁸ So the soldiers took provisions with them, along with their trumpets, and Gideon^[d] sent all the rest of the soldiers of Israel back to their own tents, but he retained the 300 men. And the Midian encampment was below him in the valley.