their tongue, putting
their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men; but all the rest of
the people knelt down on their knees to drink. Then Jehovah said to
Gideon, "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you and deliver
the Midianites into your hands. Let all the rest of the people go home."
So they took the food that the people had in their hands, and their
trumpets; and Gideon sent home all the other Israelites, keeping only
the three hundred men.

Then Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed it, and the three hundred men
were with him, faint yet pursuing. And he said to the men of Succoth,
"Give, I beg of you, loaves of bread to the people who follow me, for
they are faint and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of
Midian." But the rulers of Succoth said, "Are Zebah and Zalmunna already
in your power that we should give bread to your band?" Gideon replied,
"When Jehovah has delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my power, for this
insult I will thrash your bare flesh with desert thorns and briers." He
went on from there to Penuel and made the same request of the men of
Penuel, but they made the same answer as the men of Succoth. To the men
of Penuel he also said, "When I come back victorious, I will break down
this tower."

Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor, and their forces were with them, in
all about fifteen thousand men. Gideon went up by the caravan road and
surprised the horde as it was encamped with no fear of being attacked.
He divided the three hundred men into three companies. Into the hands of
all of them he put horns and empty earthen jars. In each jar was a
torch. He also said to them, "Watch me and do as I do. When I reach the
outside of the camp and those who are with me blow a blast on the horn,
then you also shall blow your horns on every side of the camp and cry,
'For Jehovah and Gideon!'"

So Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the outside of the camp
at the beginning of the middle watch, when guards had just been posted;
and they blew the horns and broke in pieces the jars that were in their
hands. The two other companies also broke their jars, took the torches
in their left hands and their swords in their right, and cried, "The
Sword of Jehovah and of Gideon." And as they stood where they were,
about the camp, the entire horde awoke, sounded the alarm, and fled.
Zebah and Zalmunna also fled; but Gideon followed and captured the two
kings of Midian and threw all th