And Gideon said to God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once! Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it, I pray thee, be dry upon the fleece only, and upon all the ground let there be dew.
Judges 6:37 behold, I put a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; if dew shall be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the ground, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said.
Judges 6:38 And it was so. And when he rose up early on the morrow, he pressed the fleece together, and wrung dew out of the fleece, a bowl-full of water.
Judges 6:39 And Gideon said to God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once! Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it, I pray thee, be dry upon the fleece only, and upon all the ground let there be dew.
Judges 6:40 And God did so that night, and it was dry upon the fleece only, but on all the ground there was dew.
The verse centers on "gideon", "said", "thine", "anger", "against", "speak", "once", and "prove". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "gideon" and "said", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 38's "And it was so And when he..." into verse 40's "And God did so that night and...", so "gideon" and "said" belong inside that flow. In Judges context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "gideon" and "said" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.