The LORD said to Gideon, "You have too many men, I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, 'My own strength has saved me.'  . . . So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.But the LORD said to Gideon, "There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, "This one shall go with you, he shal...  Read More

Gideon replied,  "If I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you." And the LORD said, "I will wait until you return."Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast.   . . . he brought them out and offered them to him under t...  Read More

The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years He gave them into the hands of the Midianites.  [The MIdianites] . . . so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.  . . . The angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midiani...  Read More

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten.  . . . After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what He had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals.  . . .They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They arou...  Read More

The angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?And I have also said, 'I will not drive the...  Read More

Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: . . . "I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did...  Read More