Judges 8:22-35 ▼

22 And the men of Israel say to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you, and your son, and your son’s son, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.”

23 And Gideon says to them, “I do not rule over you, nor does my son rule over you; YHWH rules over you.”

24 And Gideon says to them, “Let me ask a petition of you, and each give to me the ring of his prey, for they have rings of gold, for they [are] Ishmaelites.”

25 And they say, “We certainly give”; and they spread out the garment, and each casts the ring of his prey there;

26 and the weight of the rings of gold which he asked for is one thousand and seven hundred [shekels] of gold, apart from the crescents, and the pendants, and the purple garments, which [are] on the kings of Midian, and apart from the chains which [are] on the necks of their camels,

27 and Gideon makes it into an ephod, and sets it up in his city, in Ophrah, and all Israel go whoring after it there, and it is for a snare to Gideon and to his house.

28 And Midian is humbled before the sons of Israel, and have not added to lift up their head; and the land rests [for] forty years in the days of Gideon.

29 And Jerubba‘al son of Joash goes and dwells in his own house,

30 and there have been seventy sons of Gideon, coming out of his loin, for he had many wives;

31 and his concubine, who [is] in Shechem, has borne to him—even she—a son, and he appoints his name Abimelech.

32 And Gideon son of Joash dies, in a good old age, and is buried in the burying-place of his father Joash, in Ophrah of the Abi-Ezrite.

33 And it comes to pass, when Gideon [is] dead, that the sons of Israel turn back and go whoring after the Ba‘alim, and set Ba‘al-Berith over them for a god;

34 and the sons of Israel have not remembered their God YHWH, who is delivering them out of the hand of all their surrounding enemies,

35 neither have they done kindness with the house of Jerubba‘al—Gideon—according to all the good which he did with Israel.