Now
the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which
belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out
wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. The angel of
the Lord appeared to him and said to him, "The Lord is with you, you
mighty warrior." Gideon answered him, "But sir, if the Lord is with
us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his
wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, 'Did not
the Lord bring us up from Egypt?' But now the Lord has cast us off,
and given us into the hand of Midian." Then the Lord turned to him and
said, "Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of
Midian; I hereby commission you." He responded, "But sir, how can I
deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least
in my family." The Lord said to him, "But I will be with you, and you
shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them." Then he said to
him, "If now I have found favour with you, then show me a sign that it
is you who speak with me. Do not depart from here until I come to you,
and bring out my present, and set it before you." And he said, "I will
stay until you return."
So Gideon went into his house and
prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat
he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to
him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him,
"Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock,
and pour out the broth." And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord
reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the
meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and
consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord
vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel
of the Lord; and Gideon said, "Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the
angel of the Lord face to face." But the Lord said to him, "Peace be
to you; do not fear, you shall not die." Then Gideon built an altar
there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it
still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.
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