1. But the Ephraimites said to him, “What have you done to us, not summoning us when you went to fight against Midian?” And they quarreled bitterly with him.
2. But he answered them, “What have I done in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?
3. It was into your power God delivered the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. What have I been able to do in comparison with you?” When he said this, their anger against him subsided.
4. When Gideon reached the Jordan and crossed it, he and his three hundred men were exhausted and famished.
5. So he said to the people of Succoth, “Will you give my followers some loaves of bread? They are exhausted, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, kings of Midian.”
6. But the princes of Succoth replied, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your possession, that we should give food to your army?”
7. Gideon said, “Very well; when the Lord has delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my power, I will thrash your bodies with desert thorns and briers.”
8. He went up from there to Penuel and made the same request of them, but the people of Penuel answered him as had the people of Succoth.
9. So to the people of Penuel, too, he said, “When I return in peace, I will demolish this tower.”
10. Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their force of about fifteen thousand men; these were all who were left of the whole Kedemite army, a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen having fallen.
11. Gideon went up by the route of the tent-dwellers east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and attacked the force when it felt secure.
12. Zebah and Zalmunna fled and Gideon pursued them. He captured the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, terrifying the entire force.
13. Then Gideon, son of Joash, returned from battle by the pass of Heres.
14. He captured a young man of Succoth and questioned him, and he wrote down for him the seventy-seven princes and elders of Succoth.
15. So he went to the princes of Succoth and said, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, with whom you taunted me, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your possession, that we should give food to your weary men?’”