1. Early in the morning Jerub-Baal (also called Gideon) and all his men set up their camp at the spring of Harod. The Midianites were camped north of them in the valley at the bottom of the hill called Moreh.
2. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men to defeat the Midianites. I don’t want the Israelites to brag that they saved themselves.
3. So now, announce to the people, ‘Anyone who is afraid may leave Mount Gilead and go back home.’ ” So twenty-two thousand men returned home, but ten thousand remained.
4. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take the men down to the water, and I will test them for you there. If I say, ‘This man will go with you, he will go. But if I say, ‘That one will not go with you,’ he will not go.”