1Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, and all the people with him got up early and camped beside the well of Harod. The army of the Midianites was to the north of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
2The LORD said to Gideon, "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands. Israel might boast against me and say, 'My own hand has saved me.'"
3"So now call out to the people and say, 'Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him go back home and leave mount Gilead early.'" Twenty-two thousand of the people went back, and ten thousand remained.
4The LORD said to Gideon, "There are still too many people. Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. If I say to you, 'This one shall go with you,' he shall go with you. And if I say to you, 'This one shall not go with you,' he shall not go."
5So he brought the people down to the water. And the LORD said to Gideon, "Everyone who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, put him by himself. Do the same with everyone who kneels down to drink."
6Three hundred men lapped, putting their hand to their mouth. All the rest of the people knelt down to drink water.
7The LORD said to Gideon, "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, each man to his own place."
8So the people took food in their hands, and their trumpets. Gideon sent all the rest of Israel away, each man to his tent, and kept those three hundred men. The army of Midian was below him in the valley.
9That same night the LORD said to him, "Get up, go down to the camp, for I have given it into your hand."
10"But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Phurah your servant."
11"You will hear what they say, and afterward your hands will be made strong to go down to the camp." Then he went down with Phurah his servant to the edge of the armed men who were in the camp.
12The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley, as many as grasshoppers. Their camels could not be counted; they were as many as the sand by the seaside.
13When Gideon came, there was a man telling a dream to his friend. He said, "Listen, I dreamed a dream. A loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the camp of Midian. It came to a tent and struck it so that it fell. It turned the tent over, and the tent lay flat."
14His friend answered, "This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given Midian into his hand, and all the army."
15When Gideon heard the dream told, and what it meant, he worshipped. He went back to the camp of Israel and said, "Get up, for the LORD has given the army of Midian into your hand."
16He divided the three hundred men into three companies. He put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty jars, and lamps inside the jars.
17He said to them, "Watch me, and do the same. When I come to the edge of the camp, whatever I do, you do also."
18"When I blow a trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you blow your trumpets too, on every side of the whole camp, and shout, 'The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon.'"
19So Gideon and the hundred men with him came to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch. The guards had only just been set. They blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands.
20The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. They held the lamps in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands to blow them, and they shouted, "The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon."
21Every man stood in his place around the camp. And the whole army ran, and shouted, and fled.
22The three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man's sword against his friend, through the whole army. The army fled to Bethshittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abelmeholah, as far as Tabbath.
23The men of Israel gathered together out of Naphtali, and out of Asher, and out of all Manasseh, and chased after the Midianites.