Judges 6

¹Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD; so He delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years,

²and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds.

³Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them,

⁴encamping against them as far as Gaza and destroying the produce of the land. They left Israel with no sustenance, neither sheep nor oxen nor donkeys.

⁵For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.

⁶Israel was greatly impoverished by Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the LORD.

⁷Now when the Israelites cried out to the LORD because of Midian,

⁸He sent them a prophet, who told them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

⁹I delivered you out of the hands of Egypt and all your oppressors. I drove them out before you and gave you their land.

¹⁰And I said to you: ‘I am the LORD your God. You must not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.’ But you did not obey Me.”

¹¹Then the angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.