August 20, 2013, Reading

Judges   6: 11-24

6:11 Then an Angel of the Lord arrived, and he sat under an oak tree, which was at Ophrah, and which belonged to Joash, the father of the family of Ezri. And while his son Gideon was threshing and cleaning the grain at the winepress, so that he might flee from Midian,

6:12 the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and he said: “The Lord is with you, most valiant of men.”

6:13 And Gideon said to him: “I beg you, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why have these things happened to us? Where are his miracles, which our fathers described when they said, ‘The Lord led us away from Egypt.’ But now the Lord has forsaken us, and he has delivered us into the hand of Midian.”

6:14 And the Lord looked down upon him, and he said: “Go forth with this, your strength, and you shall free Israel from the hand of Midian. Know that I have sent you.”

6:15 And responding, he said: “I beg you, my lord, with what shall I free Israel? Behold, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in the house of my father.”

6:16 And the Lord said to him: “I will be with you. And so, you shall cut down Midian as if one man.”

6:17 And he said: “If I have found grace before you, give me a sign that it is you who is speaking to me.

6:18 And may you not withdraw from here, until I return to you, carrying a sacrifice and offering it to you.” And he responded, “I will wait for your return.”

6:19 And so Gideon entered, and he boiled a goat, and he made unleavened bread from a measure of flour. And setting the flesh in a basket, and putting the broth of the flesh in a pot, he took it all under the oak tree, and he offered it to him.

6:20 And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Take the flesh and the unleavened bread, and place them on that rock, and pour out the broth upon it.” And when he had done so,

6:21 the Angel of the Lord extended the end of a staff, which he was holding in his hand, and he touched the flesh and the unleavened loaves. And a fire ascended from the rock, and it consumed the flesh and the unleavened loaves. Then the Angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.

6:22 And Gideon, realizing that it had been the Angel of the Lord, said: “Alas, my Lord God! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.”

6:23 And the Lord said to him: “Peace be with you. Do not be afraid; you shall not die.”

6:24 Therefore, Gideon built an altar to the Lord there, and he called it, the Peace of the Lord, even to the present day. And while he was still at Ophrah, which is of the family of Ezri,