² Midian’s control predominated throughout Israel, and because of Midian the Israelis went out to find temporary hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and fortified places.

³ Whenever the Israelis sowed their crops,^[a] the Midianites, the Amalekites, and certain groups^[b] from the east would come up and invade them. ⁴ They set up their military encampments to fight them, destroyed the harvest of the land as far as Gaza, and left nothing in Israel, whether harvested grain, sheep, oxen, or donkeys.