Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 65
6:14-28
J u dges
53
they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has
abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have,
and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”
“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the
weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire
family!”
The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the
Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”
Gideon replied, “If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to
prove that it is really the Lord speaking to me. Don’t go away until I come
back and bring my offering to you.”
He answered, “I will stay here until you return.”
Gideon hurried home. He cooked a young goat, and with a basket of
flour he baked some bread without yeast. Then, carrying the meat in a
basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out and presented them to
the angel, who was under the great tree.
The angel of God said to him, “Place the meat and the unleavened bread
on this rock, and pour the broth over it.” And Gideon did as he was told.
Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and bread with the tip of
the staff in his hand, and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed all
he had brought. And the angel of the Lord disappeared.
When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he cried out,
“Oh, Sovereign Lord, I’m doomed! I have seen the angel of the Lord
face to face!”
“It is all right,” the Lord replied. “Do not be afraid. You will not die.”
And Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and named it Yahweh-Shalom
(which means “the Lord is peace”). The altar remains in Ophrah in the
land of the clan of Abiezer to this day.
That night the Lord said to Gideon, “Take the second bull from your
father’s herd, the one that is seven years old. Pull down your father’s altar
to Baal, and cut down the Asherah pole standing beside it. Then build
an altar to the Lord your God here on this hilltop sanctuary, laying the
stones carefully. Sacrifice the bull as a burnt offering on the altar, using as
fuel the wood of the Asherah pole you cut down.”
So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had commanded. But he did it at night because he was afraid of the other members
of his father’s household and the people of the town.
Early the next morning, as the people of the town began to stir, someone
discovered that the altar of Baal had been broken down and that the Ashe
rah pole beside it had been cut down. In their place a new altar had been