17
Gideon said, "If you're serious about this, do me a favor: Give me a sign to back up what you're telling me.
18
Don't leave until I come back and bring you my gift." He said, "I'll wait till you get back."
19
Gideon went and prepared a young goat and a huge amount of unraised bread (he used over half a bushel of flour!). He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and took them back under the shade of the oak tree for a sacred meal.
20
The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and unraised bread, place them on that rock, and pour the broth on them." Gideon did it.
21
The angel of God stretched out the tip of the stick he was holding and touched the meat and the bread. Fire broke out of the rock and burned up the meat and bread while the angel of God slipped away out of sight.
22
And Gideon knew it was the angel of God! Gideon said, "Oh no! Master, God! I have seen the angel of God face to face!"
23
But God reassured him, "Easy now. Don't panic. You won't die."
24
Then Gideon built an altar there to God and named it "God's Peace." It's still called that at Ophrah of Abiezer.
25
That night this happened. God said to him, "Take your father's best seven-year-old bull, the prime one. Tear down your father's Baal altar and chop down the Asherah fertility pole beside it.
26
Then build an altar to God, your God, on the top of this hill. Take the prime bull and present it as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, using firewood from the Asherah pole that you cut down."
27
Gideon selected ten men from his servants and did exactly what God had told him. But because of his family and the people in the neighborhood, he was afraid to do it openly, so he did it that night.