JOSHUA EXHORTING THE PEOPLE.
GIDEON AND THE FLEECE.
After Joshua died, the Israelites forgot God and worshiped idols. So God punished them as Joshua said. The Midianites came into the land and the Israelites had to hide from them in dens and caves. Gideon, a mighty man, was threshing corn one day when an angel came to him and told him to go and save Israel. Gideon was willing to go, but asked God to show him some sign that he would beat the Midianites. So one night God made a fleece that Gideon put on the ground wet with dew while all the ground was dry, and the next night he kept the fleece dry while all the ground was wet. Then Gideon knew that God would be on his side.
EXAMINING THE FLEECE.
THE DEFEAT OF THE MIDIANITES.
Gideon got together a large army, but God told him that only a part must fight. So Gideon picked out the three hundred bravest men and divided them into three companies of one hundred each, and put a trumpet in each man’s hand and an empty pitcher and a lamp inside the pitcher. About the middle of the night they came to the camp of the Midianites and blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers and held up the lamps and cried “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” The Midianites were afraid and ran about and cried out and killed one another. The Israelites ran after them and drove them out of the country.
