17. Gideon replied, "If you are pleased with me, give me a special sign. Then I'll know that it's really you talking to me.
18. Please don't go away until I come back. I'll bring my offering and set it down in front of you." The Lord said, "I will wait until you return."
19. Gideon went and prepared a young goat. From more than half a bushel of flour he made bread without using yeast. He put the meat in a basket. In a pot he put soup that was made from the meat. Then he brought all of it and offered it to the Lord under the oak tree.
20. The angel of God spoke to Gideon. He said, "Take the meat and the bread. Place them on this rock. Then pour out the soup." So Gideon did it.
21. The angel of the Lord had a wooden staff in his hand. With the tip of his staff he touched the meat and the bread. Fire blazed out of the rock. It burned up the meat and the bread. Then the angel of the Lord disappeared.
22. Gideon realized it was the angel of the Lord. He cried out, "Lord and King, I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!"
23. But the Lord said to him, "May peace be with you! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die."
24. So Gideon built an altar to honor the Lord there. He called it The Lord Is Peace. It still stands in Ophrah to this very day. Ophrah is in the territory that belongs to the family line of Abiezer.
25. That same night the Lord spoke to Gideon. He said, "Get the second bull from your father's herd. Get the one that is seven years old. Tear down the altar your father built in honor of Baal. Cut down the pole that is beside it. The pole is used to worship the goddess Asherah.
26. "Then build the right kind of altar. Build it in honor of the Lord your God. Build it on top of this hill. Then use the wood from the Asherah pole you cut down. Sacrifice the second bull as a burnt offering."
27. So Gideon went and got ten of his servants. He did just as the Lord had told him. But he was afraid of his family. He was also afraid of the men in the town. So he did everything at night instead of during the day.
28. In the morning the men in the town got up. They saw that Baal's altar had been torn down. The Asherah pole that was beside it had been cut down. And the second bull had been sacrificed on the new altar that had been built.
29. They asked each other, "Who did this?" They looked into the matter carefully. Someone told them, "Gideon, the son of Joash, did it."
30. The men in the town spoke to Joash. They ordered him, "Bring your son out here. He must die. He has torn down Baal's altar. He has cut down the Asherah pole that was beside it."