³ For whenever Israel had sown, the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the ^[a]people of the east and ^[b]march against them. ⁴ So they would camp against them and ^(A)destroy the produce of the earth ^[c]as far as Gaza, and ^(B)leave no sustenance in Israel, nor a sheep, ox, or donkey. ⁵ For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in ^(C)like locusts in number, and both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to ruin it.

⁵ Now the Philistines assembled to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen, and ^(A)people like the sand which is on the seashore in abundance; and they came up and camped in Michmash, east of ^(B)Beth-aven. ⁶ When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were hard-pressed), then ^(C)the people kept themselves hidden in caves, in crevices, in cliffs, in crypts, and in pits. ⁷ And some of the Hebrews crossed the Jordan into the land of ^(D)Gad and Gilead. But as for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him, trembling.

⁸ Now ^(E)he waited for seven days, until the appointed time that Samuel had set, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattering from him.