e from the
Midianites, he must first set them free from the service of Baal and
Asherah, the two idols most worshipped among them. Near the house of
Gideon's own father stood an altar to Baal, and the image of Asherah.

On that night, Gideon went out with ten men, and threw down the image of
Baal, and cut in pieces the wooden image of Asherah, and destroyed the
altar before these idols. And in its place he built an altar to the God
of Israel; and on it laid the broken pieces of the idols for wood, and
with them offered a young ox as a burnt-offering.

On the next morning, when the people of the village went out to worship
their idols, they found them cut in pieces, the altar taken away; in its
place an altar of the Lord, and on it the pieces of the Asherah were
burning as wood under a sacrifice to the Lord. The people looked at the
broken and burning idols; and they said: "Who has done this?"

Some one said: "Gideon, the son of Joash, did this last night."

Then they came to Joash, Gideon's father, and said:

"We are going to kill your son because he has destroyed the image of
Baal, who is our god."

And Joash, Gideon's father, said: "If Baal is a god, he can take care of
himself, and punish the man who has destroyed his image. Why should you
help Baal? Let Baal help himself."

And when they saw that Baal could not harm the man who had broken down
his altar and his image, the people turned from Baal, back to their own
Lord God.

Gideon sent messengers through all Manasseh on the west of Jordan, and
the tribes near on the north; and the men of the tribes gathered around
him, with a few swords and spears, but very few, for the Israelites were
not ready for war. They met beside a great spring on Mount Gilboa,
called "the fountain of Harod." Mount Gilboa is one of the three
mountains on the east of the plain of Esdraelon, or the plain of
Jezreel, where once there had been a great battle. On the plain,
stretching up the side of another of these mountains, called "the Hill
of Moreh," was the camp of a vast Midianite army. For as soon as the
Midianites heard that Gideon had undertaken to set his people free, they
came against him with a mighty host.

Gideon was a man of faith. He wished to be sure that God was leading
him, and he prayed to God and said:

"O Lord God, give me some sign that thou wilt save Israel through me.
Here is a fleece of wool on this threshing floor. If to-morrow morning
the fleece is wet with