The Call of Gideon

¹¹Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. ¹²And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” ¹³And Gideon said to him, “Please, sir,1 if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” ¹⁴And the Lord2 turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” ¹⁵And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” ¹⁶And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” ¹⁷And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. ¹⁸Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”

¹⁹So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah3 of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them. ²⁰And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” And he did so. ²¹Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. ²²Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” ²³But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” ²⁴Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

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