Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁷ Listen to my pleading, Lord! Be merciful and send the help I need.

⁸ My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me, O my people.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”

⁹ Oh, do not hide yourself when I am trying to find you. Do not angrily reject your servant. You have been my help in all my trials before; don’t leave me now. Don’t forsake me, O God of my salvation. ¹⁰ For if my father and mother should abandon me, you would welcome and comfort me.

¹¹ Tell me what to do, O Lord, and make it plain because I am surrounded by waiting enemies. ¹² Don’t let them get me, Lord! Don’t let me fall into their hands! For they accuse me of things I never did, and all the while are plotting cruelty. ¹³ I am expecting the Lord to rescue me again, so that once again I will see his goodness to me here in the land of the living.

¹⁴ Don’t be impatient. Wait for the Lord, and he will come and save you! Be brave, stouthearted, and courageous. Yes, wait and he will help you.

^12-13 The vast armies of Midian, Amalek, and the other nations of the Mideast were crowded across the valley like locusts—yes, like the sand upon the seashore—and there were too many camels even to count! Gideon crept up to one of the tents just as a man inside had wakened from a nightmare and was telling his tent-mate about it.

“I had this strange dream,” he was saying, “and there was this huge loaf of barley bread that came tumbling down into our camp. It hit our tent and knocked it flat!”

¹⁴ The other soldier replied, “Your dream can mean only one thing! Gideon, the son of Joash, the Israeli, is going to come and massacre all the allied forces of Midian!”

¹⁵ When Gideon heard the dream and the interpretation, all he could do was just stand there worshiping God! Then he returned to his men and shouted, “Get up! For the Lord is going to use you to conquer all the vast armies of Midian!”

¹⁶ He divided the three hundred men into three groups and gave each man a trumpet and a clay jar with a torch in it. ¹⁷ Then he explained his plan. “When we arrive at the outer guardposts of the camp,” he told them, “do just as I do. ¹⁸ As soon as I and the men in my group blow our trumpets, you blow yours on all sides of the camp and shout, ‘We fight for God and for Gideon!’”

^19-20 It was just after midnight and the change of guards when Gideon and the hundred men with him crept to the outer edge of the camp of Midian.

Suddenly they blew their trumpets and broke their clay jars so that their torches blazed into the night. Then the other two hundred of his men did the same, blowing the trumpets in their right hands, and holding the flaming torches in their left hands, all shouting, “For the Lord and for Gideon!”^[a]

²¹ Then they just stood and watched as the whole vast enemy army began rushing around in a panic, shouting and running away. ²² For in the confusion the Lord caused the enemy troops to begin fighting and killing each other from one end of the camp to the other, and they fled into the night to places as far away as Beth-shittah near Zererah, and to the border of Abel-meholah near Tabbath.

¹² Dearest friends, when I was there with you, you were always so careful to follow my instructions. And now that I am away you must be even more careful to do the good things that result from being saved, obeying God with deep reverence, shrinking back from all that might displease him. ¹³ For God is at work within you, helping you want to obey him, and then helping you do what he wants.

¹⁴ In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing ¹⁵ so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of people who are crooked and stubborn. Shine out among them like beacon lights, ¹⁶ holding out to them the Word of Life.

Then when Christ returns, how glad I will be that my work among you was so worthwhile. ¹⁷ And if my lifeblood is, so to speak, to be poured out over your faith, which I am offering up to God as a sacrifice—that is, if I am to die for you—even then I will be glad and will share my joy with each of you. ¹⁸ For you should be happy about this, too, and rejoice with me for having this privilege of dying for you.