3. For it used to be that whenever the Israelites had completed sowing their crops, Midian, Amalek, and the Kedemites would come up,
4. encamp against them, and lay waste the produce of the land as far as the outskirts of Gaza, leaving no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep, ox, or donkey.
5. For they would come up with their livestock, and their tents would appear as thick as locusts. They would be too many to count when they came into the land to lay it waste.
6. Israel was reduced to utter poverty by Midian, and so the Israelites cried out to the Lord.
7. When Israel cried out to the Lord because of Midian,
8. the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites who said to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I am the one who brought you up from Egypt; I brought you out of the house of slavery.
9. I rescued you from the power of Egypt and all your oppressors. I drove them out before you and gave you their land.
10. And I said to you: I, the Lord, am your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are dwelling. But you did not listen to me.
11. Then the messenger of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. Joash’s son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to save it from the Midianites,
12. and the messenger of the Lord appeared to him and said: The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior!
13. “My lord,” Gideon said to him, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are his wondrous deeds about which our ancestors told us when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ For now the Lord has abandoned us and has delivered us into the power of Midian.”
14. The Lord turned to him and said: Go with the strength you have, and save Israel from the power of Midian. Is it not I who send you?
15. But he answered him, “Please, my Lord, how can I save Israel? My family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the most insignificant in my father’s house.”
16. The Lord said to him: I will be with you, and you will cut down Midian to the last man.
17. He answered him, “If you look on me with favor, give me a sign that you are the one speaking with me.