Judges 6:3-11

3Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them, 4encamping against them as far as Gaza and destroying the produce of the land. They left Israel with no sustenance, neither sheep nor oxen nor donkeys. 5For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.

6Israel was greatly impoverished by Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the LORD.

7Now when the Israelites cried out to the LORD because of Midian, 8He sent them a prophet, who told them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 9I delivered you out of the hands of Egypt and all your oppressors. I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10And I said to you: ‘I am the LORD your God. You must not fear1 the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.’ But you did not obey Me.”

11Then the angel2 of the LORD came and sat down under the oak3 in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.