1. Then Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) rose early, and all the army that was with him. They were camped beside the spring of Harod; the camp of Midian was north of the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
2. And Yahweh said to Gideon, “The troops that are with you are too many for me to give Midian into their hands; Israel will boast, saying, ‘My hand has delivered me.’
3. 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.
4. And Yahweh said to Gideon, “There are still too many troops; bring them down to the water, and I will sift through them for you there. For whomever I say to you, ‘This one will go with you,’ he will go with you; and for all whom I say to you, ‘This one will not go with you,’ he will not go.”
5. 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.”
6. The number of those lapping up the water with their hand to their mouth was three hundred men; all the rest of the troops kneeled to drink the water.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. And that night Yahweh said to him, “Get up; go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.
10. But if you are afraid, go down to the camp with Purah your servant,
11. and you will hear what they say; and afterward you will have courage, and you will go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men that were in the camp.
12. Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the people of the east were lying in the valley, like a great multitude of locusts; their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand that is on the shore of the sea.
13. 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.”