16. The Lord answered him, “I will be with you. It will seem as if you are fighting only one man.”
17. Then Gideon said to the Lord, “If you are pleased with me, give me proof. Show me that it is really you talking with me.
18. Please wait here. Do not go away until I come back to you. Let me bring my offering and set it in front of you.”And the Lord said, “I will wait until you come back.”
19. So Gideon went in and cooked a young goat. He also took about 20 quarts of flour and made bread without yeast. Then he put the meat into a basket. And he put the broth from the boiled meat into a pot. He brought out the meat, the broth and the bread without yeast. He brought the food to the angel of the Lord. Gideon gave it to him under the oak tree.
20. The angel of God said to Gideon, “Put the meat and the bread without yeast on that rock over there. Then pour the broth on them.” And Gideon did as he was told.
21. The angel of the Lord had a stick in his hand. He touched the meat and the bread with the end of the stick. Then fire jumped up from the rock! The meat and the bread were completely burned up! And the angel of the Lord disappeared!
22. Then Gideon understood he had been talking to the angel of the Lord. So Gideon cried, “Lord God! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!”
23. But the Lord said to Gideon, “Calm down! Don’t be afraid! You will not die!”
24. So Gideon built an altar there to worship the Lord. Gideon named the altar The Lord Is Peace. It still stands at Ophrah, where the Abiezrites live.
25. That same night the Lord spoke to Gideon. The Lord said, “Take the bull that belongs to your father and a second bull seven years old. Pull down your father’s altar to Baal. Cut down the Asherah idol beside it.
26. Then build an altar to the Lord your God. Build it on this high ground. Lay its stones in the right order. Then kill and burn the bull on this altar. Use the wood from the Asherah idol to burn your offering.”
27. So Gideon got ten of his servants. And he did what the Lord had told him to do. But Gideon was afraid that his family and the men of the city might see him. So he did it at night, not in the daytime.
28. The men of the city got up the next morning. They saw that the altar for Baal had been destroyed! And they saw that the Asherah idol beside it had been cut down! They also saw the altar Gideon had built. And they saw the bull that had been sacrificed on it.
29. The men of the city looked at each other and asked, “Who did this?” They asked many questions and looked for the person who had done those things.Someone told them, “Gideon son of Joash did this.”