5 They would come with their livestock and tents, as thick as locusts. They and their camels were too many to count. They came and devastated the land,
6 and Israel was helpless against them.
7 Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help against the Midianites,
8 and he sent them a prophet who brought them this message from the Lord, the God of Israel: “I brought you out of slavery in Egypt.
9 I rescued you from the Egyptians and from the people who fought you here in this land. I drove them out as you advanced, and I gave you their land.
10 I told you that I am the Lord your God and that you should not worship the gods of the Amorites, whose land you are now living in. But you have not listened to me.”
11 Then the Lord's angel came to the village of Ophrah and sat under the oak tree that belonged to Joash, a man of the clan of Abiezer. His son Gideon was threshing some wheat secretly in a wine press, so that the Midianites would not see him.