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(that is, Gideon) and all the men with him got up early in the morning, and they camped beside the spring of Harod. The camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them, below the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men with you for Me to deliver the Midianites into their hands. Otherwise Israel might claim the glory due to Me and boast, ‘My own hand has delivered me’. 3 So announce in the hearing of the men: ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead’.” So twenty-two thousand men turned back, while ten thousand remained.
4 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. If I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you’, he shall go with you; but if I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you’, he shall not go.”
5 So Gideon led the men down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, “Separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, from everyone who kneels down to drink.” 6 The number of those who lapped with their hands to their mouth was three hundred men, while all of the other men knelt down to drink water.
7 The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, each man to his own home.” 8 So Gideon sent away the rest of Israel to their tents but retained the three hundred men, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others.
Now the camp of the Midianites lay below him in the valley, 9 and that same night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hands. 10 But if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah. 11 Then listen to what they say, then you will be strengthened to go down against the camp.” So Gideon went down with his servant Purah to the outpost of the armed men in the camp. 12 Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the eastern peoples that had settled in the valley were as numerous as locusts, and their camels were countless, as innumerable as the sand on the seashore.
13 When Gideon arrived, there was a man telling a friend about his dream. He said, “I have had a dream: a loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck a tent with such force that the tent was overturned and it collapsed.”
14 His friend replied, “This can be nothing less than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel! God has delivered Midian and the whole camp into his hands.”
15 When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Get up, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hands.” 16 Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he placed trumpets and empty jars with torches inside into each man’s hand.
17 “Watch me,” Gideon said to them, “and do the same. When I get to the edge of the camp, do as I do. 18 When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then you also blow your trumpets all around the camp and shout, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’ ”
19 Then Gideon and the hundred men with him went to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. 20 The three companies sounded the trumpets and broke the jars. They held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands they were to blow, and they shouted, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” 21 While each man remained standing in his position around the camp, the Midianite army ran away, crying out as they fled.
22 When the three hundred blew their trumpets, the Lord set each man’s sword against his fellow, and against the whole army. The Midianite army fled to Beth-shittah toward Zererah, and as far as the border of Abel-meholah near Tabbath. 23 The men of Israel from Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh rallied together, and they pursued the Midianites.
24 Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites and seize control of the watering places ahead of them as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan.”
So all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they seized the watering places as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan. 25 They also captured two of the Midianite princes, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb, while they were pursuing the Midianites. And they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of the Jordan.