Dual Panel1Early next morning Jerubbaal, that is Gideon, with all his troops pitched camp at En-harod; the Midianite encampment was in the valley to the north of his by the hill at Moreh.
2The LORD said to Gideon, “Those with you are more than I need to deliver Midian into their hands: Israel might claim the glory for themselves and say that it is their own strength that has given them the victory.
3Make a proclamation now to the army to say that anyone who is afraid or anxious is to leave Mount Galud at once and go home.” Twenty-two thousand of them went, and ten thousand remained.
4“There are still too many,” said the LORD to Gideon. “Bring them down to the water, and I shall separate them for you there. If I say to you, ‘This man shall go with you,’ he shall go; and if I say, ‘This man shall not go,’ he shall not go.”
5When Gideon brought the men down to the water, the LORD said to him, “Make every man who laps the water with his tongue like a dog stand on one side, and on the other every man who kneels down and drinks.”
6The number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was three hundred; all the rest had gone down on their knees to drink.
7The LORD said, “By means of the three hundred men who lapped I shall save you and give Midian into your power; the rest may go home.”
8Gideon sent all these Israelites home, but he kept the three hundred, and they took with them the jars and the trumpets which the people had. The Midianite camp was below him in the valley,
9and that night the LORD said to Gideon, “Go down at once and attack the camp, for I have delivered it into your hands.
10If you are afraid to do so, then go down first with your servant Purah,
11and when you hear what they are saying, that will give you courage to attack the camp.” So he and his servant Purah went down to the outposts of the camp where the fighting men were stationed.
12The Midianites, the Amalekites, and all the eastern tribes were so many that they lay there in the valley like a swarm of locusts; there was no counting their camels, which in number were like grains of sand on the seashore.
13As Gideon came close, there was a man telling his comrades about a dream. He said, “I dreamt that I saw a barley loaf rolling over and over through the Midianite camp; it came to a tent, struck it, and the tent collapsed and turned upside down.”
14The other answered, “This can be none other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash the Israelite. God has delivered Midian and the whole army into his hands.”
15When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down in worship. Then going back to the Israelite camp he said, “Let us go! The LORD has delivered the camp of the Midianites into our hands.”
16He divided the three hundred men into three companies, and furnished every man with a trumpet and an empty jar, with a torch inside each jar.
17“Watch me,” he said to them. “When I come to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do.
18When I and those with me blow our trumpets, you too all round the camp blow your trumpets and shout, ‘For the LORD and for Gideon!’”
19Gideon and the hundred men who were with him reached the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the posting of the sentries. They blew the trumpets and smashed the jars they were holding.
20All three companies blew their trumpets and smashed their jars; then, grasping the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right, they shouted, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!”
21Every man stood where he was, all round the camp, and the whole camp leapt up in a panic and took flight.
22When the three hundred blew their trumpets, the LORD set all the men in the camp fighting against each other. They fled as far as Beth-shittah in the direction of Zererah, as far as the ridge of Abel-meholah near Tabbath.
23The Israelites from Naphtali and Asher and all Manasseh were called out to pursue the Midianites.
24Gideon also sent messengers throughout the hill-country of Ephraim to say: “Come down and cut off the Midianites. Hold the fords of the Jordan against them as far as Beth-barah.” So all the Ephraimites when called out held the fords of the Jordan as far as Beth-barah.
25They captured the two Midianite princes, Oreb and Zeeb. Oreb they killed at the Rock of Oreb, and Zeeb by the Winepress of Zeeb, and they kept up the pursuit of the Midianites; afterwards they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of Jordan.