CHAPTER 7
1 Then Jerubbaal, which also is Gideon, rose by night, and all the people with him, and came to the well which is called Harod. And the tents of Midian were in the valley, at the north coast of the high hill.
2 And the Lord said to Gideon, Much people is with thee, and Midian shall not be betaken into the hands thereof, lest Israel have glory against me, and say, I am delivered by my strengths.
3 Speak thou to the people, and preach thou, while all men hear, He that is fearedful, and dreadful, turn again. And they went away from the hill of Gilead, and two and twenty thousand of men turned again from the people; and only ten thousand dwelled.
4 And the Lord said to Gideon, Yet the people is much; lead thou them to the waters, and there I shall prove them, and he go with thee, of whom I shall say, that he go; and turn he again, whom I shall forbid to go.
5 And when the people had gone down to the waters, the Lord said to Gideon, Thou shalt separate them by themselves that lap waters with hand and tongue, as dogs be wont to lap; and those, that drink with knees bowed, shall be in the tother part.
6 And so the number of them, that lapped waters, by the hand casting to the mouth, was three hundred men; and all the tother multitude drank kneeling.
7 And the Lord said to Gideon, In three hundred men, that lapped waters, I shall deliver you, and I shall betake Midian in thine hand; and all the tother multitude turn again into their place.
8 And [so] when they had taken meats and trumps for the number of them, he commanded all the tother multitude to go to their tabernacles; and Gideon, with three hundred men, gave himself to [the] battle. And the tents of Midian were beneath in the valley.
9 In the same night the Lord said to him, Rise thou, and go down into their tents, for I have betaken them in thine hand;
10 and if thou dreadest to go alone, Phurah, thy servant, go down with thee.
11 And when thou shalt hear what they speak, then thine hands shall be comforted, and thou shalt go down securer to the tents of [the] enemies. Therefore he went down, and Phurah, his servant, into the part of [the] tents, where the watches of armed men were.
12 And Midian, and Amalek, and all the peoples of the east lay spread abroad in the valley, as the multitude of locusts; and the camels were unnumberable, as gravel that lieth in the brink of the sea.
13 And when Gideon had come down, a man told a dream to his neighbour, and he told by this manner that, that he had seen, I saw a dream, and it seemed to me, that as a barley loaf, baken under ashes, was wallowed, and it came down into the tents of Midian; and when it had come to a tabernacle, it smote it, and destroyed it, and made it even utterly to the earth.
14 That man answered, to whom he spake, This is none other thing, no but the sword of Gideon, [the] son of Joash, a man of Israel; for the Lord God hath betaken Midian, and all [the] tents thereof, into the hands of Gideon.
15 And when Gideon had heard the dream, and the interpreting thereof, he worshipped the Lord, and turned again to the tents of Israel, and said, Rise ye; for the Lord hath betaken into our hands the tents of Midian.
16 And he parted the three hundred men into three parts, and he gave them trumps in their hands, and empty pots, and lamps, that is, burning brands, either torches, that might not lightly be quenched, in the midst of the pots.
17 And he said to them, Do ye this thing which ye see me do; I shall enter into a part of the tents, and pursue [or follow] ye that, that I do.
18 When the trump in my hand shall sound, sound ye also all about the tents, and cry ye together, To the Lord, and to Gideon.
19 And Gideon entered, and the three hundred men that were with him, into a part of the tents, when the watches of midnight began; and when the keepers were raised, they began to sound with trumps, and to beat together the pots among themselves.
20 And when they sounded in three places by compass, and had broken the pots, they held [the] lamps in their left hands, and [the] sounding trumps in their right hands; and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon;
21 and they stood all in their place, about the tents of their enemies. And so all the tents were troubled; and they cried [out], and yelled, and fled;
22 and nevertheless the three hundred men continued, sounding with trumps. And the Lord sent [in] sword in all the tents, and they killed themselves by death each other; and they fled till to Bethshittah, in Zererath, and by the side, from Abelmeholah into Tabbath.
23 And men of Israel cried together, of Naphtali, and of Asher, and of all Manasseh, and they pursued Midian; and the Lord gave victory to the people of Israel in that day.
24 And Gideon sent messengers into all the hill country of Ephraim, and said, Come ye down against the coming of Midian, and occupy ye the waters till to Bethbarah and Jordan. And all Ephraim cried, and before-occupied the waters of the Jordan until Bethbarah.
25 And Ephraim killed two chief men of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; he killed Oreb in the stone of Oreb, and Zeeb in the presser of Zeeb; and Ephraim pursued Midian, and they bare the heads of Oreb and of Zeeb to Gideon, over the floods of Jordan.