Judges 7:8-20

New Catholic Bible

⁸ So they took the other people’s provisions, and they placed their trumpets in their hands. Gideon sent all the other Israelite men back to their homes, but he kept three hundred men with him.

The army of Midian was camped in the valley below them. ⁹ That same night the Lord said to him, “Rise up, go down against the army, for I have delivered them into your hands. ¹⁰ Draw near them until you can hear what they are saying, ¹¹ and then your hands will be strengthened so that you can descend upon the camp.” So he and his servant Purah went down to the outskirts of the camp. ¹² The Midianites, the Amalekites, and all of the other easterners were lying in the valley, as thick as locusts. There were so many camels that they could not be counted; there were as many of them as there is sand on the seashore.

¹³ Gideon arrived just as a man was telling his friend about a dream. He said, “I dreamed that a barley cake^[a] came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent so hard that it overturned and collapsed.” ¹⁴ His friend said, “This can only be the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, the Israelite. God has delivered Midian and its entire army into his hands.”

¹⁵ When Gideon heard the content of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. He returned to the army of Israel and said, “Rise up, for the Lord has delivered the army of Midian into your hands.”

¹⁶ He divided the three hundred men into three groups, and he placed trumpets and empty jars with torches inside them into each man’s hands. ¹⁷ He said to them, “Watch me. Do whatever I do. When we reach the edge of the camp, do whatever I do. ¹⁸ When I and all those who are with me blow our trumpets, then blow your trumpets all around the camp and shout out, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’ ”

¹⁹ Gideon and the three hundred men who were with him reached 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 groups blew their trumpets and broke their jars, holding the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands. They blew their trumpets and cried out, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.”