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Then the people of Ephraim said to Gideon, "Why didn't you call us when you went to fight the Midianites? Why did you treat us like this?" They complained bitterly about it.
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But he told them, "What I was able to do is nothing compared with what you have done. Even the little that you people of Ephraim did is worth more than what my whole clan has done.
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After all, through the power of God you killed the two Midianite chiefs, Oreb and Zeeb. What have I done to compare with that?" When he said this, they were no longer so angry.
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By this time Gideon and his three hundred men had come to the Jordan River and had crossed it. They were exhausted, but were still pursuing the enemy.
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When they arrived at Sukkoth, he said to the men of the town, "Please give my men some loaves of bread. They are exhausted, and I am chasing Zebah and Zalmunna, the Midianite kings."
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But the leaders of Sukkoth said, "Why should we give your army any food? You haven't captured Zebah and Zalmunna yet."
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So Gideon said, "All right! When the LORD has handed Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will beat you with thorns and briers from the desert!"
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Gideon went on to Penuel and made the same request of the people there, but the men of Penuel gave the same answer as the men of Sukkoth.
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So he said to them, "I am going to come back safe and sound, and when I do, I will tear this tower down!"
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Zebah and Zalmunna were at Karkor with their army. Of the whole army of desert tribesmen, only about 15,000 were left; 120,000 soldiers had been killed.
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Gideon went on the road along the edge of the desert, east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and attacked the army by surprise.
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The two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, ran away, but he pursued them and captured them, and caused their whole army to panic.
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When Gideon was returning from the battle by way of Heres Pass,
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he captured a young man from Sukkoth and questioned him. The young man wrote down for Gideon the names of the seventy-seven leading men of Sukkoth.
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Then Gideon went to the men of Sukkoth and said, "Remember when you refused to help me? You said that you couldn't give any food to my exhausted army because I hadn't captured Zebah and Zalmunna yet. Well, here they are!"
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He then took thorns and briers from the desert and used them to punish the leaders of Sukkoth.
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He also tore down the tower at Penuel and killed the men of that city.
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Then Gideon asked Zebah and Zalmunna, "What about the men you killed at Tabor?" They answered, "They looked like you---every one of them like the son of a king."
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Gideon said, "They were my brothers, my own mother's sons. I solemnly swear that if you had not killed them, I would not kill you."
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Then he said to Jether, his oldest son, "Go ahead, kill them!" But the boy did not draw his sword. He hesitated, because he was still only a boy.
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Then Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, "Come on, kill us yourself. It takes a man to do a man's job." So Gideon killed them and took the ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.
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After that, the Israelites said to Gideon, "Be our ruler---you and your descendants after you. You have saved us from the Midianites."
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Gideon answered, "I will not be your ruler, nor will my son. The LORD will be your ruler."
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But he went on to say, "Let me ask one thing of you. Every one of you give me the earrings you took." (The Midianites, like other desert people, wore gold earrings.)
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The people answered, "We'll be glad to give them to you." They spread out a cloth, and everyone put on it the earrings that he had taken.
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The gold earrings that Gideon got weighed over forty pounds, and this did not include the ornaments, necklaces, and purple clothes that the kings of Midian wore, nor the collars that were around the necks of their camels.
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Gideon made an idol from the gold and put it in his hometown, Ophrah. All the Israelites abandoned God and went there to worship the idol. It was a trap for Gideon and his family.
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So Midian was defeated by the Israelites and was no longer a threat. The land was at peace for forty years, until Gideon died.
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Gideon went back to his own home and lived there.
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He had seventy sons, because he had many wives.
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He also had a concubine in Shechem; she bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.
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Gideon son of Joash died at a ripe old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash, at Ophrah, the town of the clan of Abiezer.
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After Gideon's death the people of Israel were unfaithful to God again and worshiped the Baals. They made Baal-of-the-Covenant their god,
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and no longer served the LORD their God, who had saved them from all their enemies around them.
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They were not grateful to the family of Gideon for all the good that he had done for Israel.
1
As a deer longs for a stream of cool water, so I long for you, O God.
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I thirst for you, the living God. When can I go and worship in your presence?
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Day and night I cry, and tears are my only food; all the time my enemies ask me, "Where is your God?"
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My heart breaks when I remember the past, when I went with the crowds to the house of God and led them as they walked along, a happy crowd, singing and shouting praise to God.
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Why am I so sad? Why am I so troubled? I will put my hope in God, and once again I will praise him, my savior and my God.
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Here in exile my heart is breaking, and so I turn my thoughts to him. He has sent waves of sorrow over my soul; chaos roars at me like a flood, like waterfalls thundering down to the Jordan from Mount Hermon and Mount Mizar.
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May the LORD show his constant love during the day, so that I may have a song at night, a prayer to the God of my life.
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To God, my defender, I say, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go on suffering from the cruelty of my enemies?"
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I am crushed by their insults, as they keep on asking me, "Where is your God?"
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Why am I so sad? Why am I so troubled? I will put my hope in God, and once again I will praise him, my savior and my God.
1
And now I want to remind you, my friends, of the Good News which I preached to you, which you received, and on which your faith stands firm.
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That is the gospel, the message that I preached to you. You are saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to it---unless it was for nothing that you believed.
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I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance: that Christ died for our sins, as written in the Scriptures;
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that he was buried and that he was raised to life three days later, as written in the Scriptures;
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that he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles.
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Then he appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died.
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Then he appeared to James, and afterward to all the apostles.
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Last of all he appeared also to me---even though I am like someone whose birth was abnormal.
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For I am the least of all the apostles---I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted God's church.
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But by God's grace I am what I am, and the grace that he gave me was not without effect. On the contrary, I have worked harder than any of the other apostles, although it was not really my own doing, but God's grace working with me.
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So then, whether it came from me or from them, this is what we all preach, and this is what you believe.
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Now, since our message is that Christ has been raised from death, how can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life?
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If that is true, it means that Christ was not raised;
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and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe.
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More than that, we are shown to be lying about God, because we said that he raised Christ from death---but if it is true that the dead are not raised to life, then he did not raise Christ.
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For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised.
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And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins.
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It would also mean that the believers in Christ who have died are lost.
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If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world.
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But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.
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For just as death came by means of a man, in the same way the rising from death comes by means of a man.
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For just as all people die because of their union with Adam, in the same way all will be raised to life because of their union with Christ.
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But each one will be raised in proper order: Christ, first of all; then, at the time of his coming, those who belong to him.
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Then the end will come; Christ will overcome all spiritual rulers, authorities, and powers, and will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father.
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For Christ must rule until God defeats all enemies and puts them under his feet.
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The last enemy to be defeated will be death.
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For the scripture says, "God put all things under his feet." It is clear, of course, that the words "all things" do not include God himself, who puts all things under Christ.
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But when all things have been placed under Christ's rule, then he himself, the Son, will place himself under God, who placed all things under him; and God will rule completely over all.
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Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the dead are not raised to life, why are those people being baptized for the dead?
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And as for us---why would we run the risk of danger every hour?
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My friends, I face death every day! The pride I have in you, in our life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord, makes me declare this.
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If I have, as it were, fought "wild beasts" here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die."
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Do not be fooled. "Bad companions ruin good character."
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Come back to your right senses and stop your sinful ways. I declare to your shame that some of you do not know God.
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Someone will ask, "How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?"
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You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies.
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And what you plant is a bare seed, perhaps a grain of wheat or some other grain, not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up.
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God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body.
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And the flesh of living beings is not all the same kind of flesh; human beings have one kind of flesh, animals another, birds another, and fish another.
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And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beauty that belongs to earthly bodies.
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The sun has its own beauty, the moon another beauty, and the stars a different beauty; and even among stars there are different kinds of beauty.
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This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life. When the body is buried, it is mortal; when raised, it will be immortal.
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When buried, it is ugly and weak; when raised, it will be beautiful and strong.
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When buried, it is a physical body; when raised, it will be a spiritual body. There is, of course, a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body.
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For the scripture says, "The first man, Adam, was created a living being"; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit.
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It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.
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The first Adam, made of earth, came from the earth; the second Adam came from heaven.
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Those who belong to the earth are like the one who was made of earth; those who are of heaven are like the one who came from heaven.
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Just as we wear the likeness of the man made of earth, so we will wear the likeness of the Man from heaven.
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What I mean, friends, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God's Kingdom, and what is mortal cannot possess immortality.
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Listen to this secret truth: we shall not all die, but when the last trumpet sounds, we shall all be changed in an instant, as quickly as the blinking of an eye. For when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed.
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For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what cannot die.
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So when this takes place, and the mortal has been changed into the immortal, then the scripture will come true: "Death is destroyed; victory is complete!"
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"Where, Death, is your victory? Where, Death, is your power to hurt?"
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Death gets its power to hurt from sin, and sin gets its power from the Law.
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But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
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So then, my dear friends, stand firm and steady. Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord's service is ever useless.
