Judges 7:8–22

⁸So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites to their tents but kept the three hundred men, who took charge of the provisions and rams’ horns of the others. And the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley.

⁹That night the LORD said to Gideon, “Get up and go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand. ¹⁰But if you are afraid to do so, then go down to the camp with your servant Purah ¹¹and listen to what they are saying. Then your hands will be strengthened to attack the camp.” So he went with Purah his servant to the outposts where armed men were guarding the camp.

¹²Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the other people of the east had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts, and their camels were as countless as the sand on the seashore. ¹³And as Gideon arrived, a man was telling his friend about a dream. “Behold, I had a dream,” he said, “and I saw a loaf of barley bread come tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent so hard that the tent overturned and collapsed.”

¹⁴His friend replied: “This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has delivered Midian and the whole camp into his hand.”

¹⁵When Gideon heard 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 hand.” ¹⁶And he divided the three hundred men into three companies and gave each man a ram’s horn in one hand and a large jar in the other, containing a torch.^b

¹⁷“Watch me and do as I do,” Gideon said. “When I come to the outskirts of the camp, do exactly as I do. ¹⁸When I and all who are with me blow our horns, then you are also to blow your horns from all around the camp and shout, ‘For the LORD and for Gideon!’”

¹⁹Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the changing of the guard. They blew their horns and broke the jars that were in their hands. ²⁰The three companies blew their horns and shattered their jars. Holding the torches in their left hands and the horns in their right hands, they shouted, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!”

²¹Each Israelite took his position around the camp, and the entire Midianite army fled, crying out as they ran. ²²And when the three hundred rams’ horns sounded, the LORD set all the men in the camp against one another with their swords. The army fled to Beth-shittah toward Zererah^c as far as the border of Abel-meholah near Tabbath.