Study Desk

And Deborah said to Barak, "Get up! This is the day that Yahweh has given Sisera into your hand. Has Yahweh not gone out before you?" So Barak went out from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.

And Jael came out to meet Sisera, and she said to him, "Turn aside, my lord; turn aside to me and do not be afraid." So he turned aside into her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.

And he said to her, "Please, give me a drink of water, because I am thirsty." So she opened a skin vessel of milk and gave him a drink and covered him.

So may all your enemies perish, O Yahweh, but those who love him are like the rising sun at its brightest." And the land had rest for forty years.

The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened cakes and put them on this rock; pour the broth over it." And he did so.

And they said to one another, "Who did this thing?" So they searched and inquired, and they said, "Gideon son of Jehoash did this thing."

And the men of the city said to Jehoash, "Bring out your son so that he may die, for he has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah that was beside it."

So the Spirit of Yahweh took possession of Gideon, and he blew on the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called to follow him.

And it was so. He arose early the next day and squeezed the fleece, and he wrung out dew from the fleece, a full drinking bowl of water.

And God did so that night; only the fleece was dry, and dew was on all the ground.

So then, please proclaim in the hearing of the troops, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return and depart from the Mount of Gilead.'" About twenty-two thousand troops returned, and ten thousand remained.

So he brought down the troops to the water, and Yahweh said to Gideon, "You must separate everyone who laps up the water to drink with his tongue like a dog from those who kneel."

And Yahweh said to Gideon, "I will deliver you with the three hundred men lapping up the water; I will give Midian into your hand, so let the other troops go, each to his own place.

So they took their provisions and their trumpets into their hand, and he sent all the men of Israel, each one, to his tent; but three hundred of the men he kept; the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

When Gideon came, a man was recounting a dream to his friend, and he said, "Behold, I had a dream; a round loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came up to the tent, it struck it, and it fell and turned it upside down so that the tent fell."

So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle night-watch, when they had just finished setting up the guards, and they blew on the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands.

Zebah and Zalmunna said, "Get up yourself, and strike us, for as is the man, so is his power." So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.

And they told Jotham, and he went up and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and he cried out loud and said to them, "Listen to me, lords of Shechem, so that God may listen to you.

So all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘You, come rule over us.'

"So then, if you have acted in good faith and sincerity in making Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerub-Baal and his house, and have dealt with him according to his accomplishments—