Judges 7:2-22

2The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, 1for Israel 2would become boastful, saying, ‘My own 3power has delivered me.’ 3Now therefore 4come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘5Whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead.’” So 22,000 people returned, but 10,000 remained.

46Then the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; but everyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” 5So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink.” 6Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men; but all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. 7The Lord said to Gideon, “I will deliver you 7with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his 8home.” 8So 9the 300 men took the people’s provisions and their trumpets into their hands. And 10Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

9Now the same night it came about that the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, 11for I have given it into your hands. 10But if you are afraid to go down, go with Purah your servant down to the camp, 11and you will hear what they say; and 12afterward your hands will be strengthened that you may go down against the camp.” So he went with Purah his servant down to the 13outposts of the army that was in the camp. 12Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east were lying in the valley 14as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, 15as numerous as the sand on the seashore. 13When Gideon came, behold, a man was relating a dream to his friend. And he said, “Behold, I 16had a dream; 17a loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell, and turned it 18upside down so that the tent lay flat.” 14His friend replied, “This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given Midian and all the camp 19into his hand.”

15When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Arise, for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into your hands.” 16He divided the 300 men into three 20companies, and he put trumpets and empty pitchers into the hands of all of them, with torches inside the pitchers. 17He said to them, “Look at me and do likewise. And behold, when I come to the outskirts of the camp, 21do as I do. 18When I and all who are with me blow the trumpet, then you also blow the trumpets all around the camp and say, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’”

19So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just posted the watch; and they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers that were in their hands. 20When the three 22companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers, they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing, and cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 21Each stood in his place around the camp; and 23all the 24army ran, crying out as they fled. 22When they blew 300 trumpets, the 25Lord set the sword of one against another even throughout the whole 26army; and the 27army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the edge of 28Abel-meholah, by Tabbath.