5. These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare.
6. So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the lord for help.
7. When they cried out to the lord because of Midian,
8. the lord sent a prophet to the Israelites. He said, “This is what the lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of slavery in Egypt.
9. I rescued you from the Egyptians and from all who oppressed you. I drove out your enemies and gave you their land.
10. I told you, ‘I am the lord your God. You must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
11. Then the angel of the lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites.
12. The angel of the lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the lord is with you!”