Judges 8:24-35 ▼

24 And Gideon said to them, “I would like to make a request of you?, that would give to me, each of you, the rings from his plunder.” (For gold rings were unto them, because they were Ishmaelites.)

25 And they answered, “We will give them gladly.” And they spread out a garment, and each man threw into it the rings from his plunder.

26 And the weight of the gold rings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold, apart from the crescent ornaments and pendants and purple robes that were on the kings of Midian, and apart from the chains that were around the necks of their camels.

27 And Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel played the prostitute with it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house.

28 And Midian was subdued before the faces of the sons of Israel, so that no more they lifted up their head. And the country was quiet forty years in the days of Gideon.

29 And Jerubbaal son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.

30 And Gideon had seventy sons coming from his loin, for unto him were many wives,

31 and his concubine who was in Shechem, and she also bore him a son, and he called his name Abimelech.

32 And Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age, and he was buried in the tomb of Joash his father in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites.

33 And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the sons of Israel turned back and played the prostitute with the Baals, and they set up to them Baal-berith for a god.

34 And the sons of Israel did not remember YHWH their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side,

35 nor did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (Gideon) in accordance with the good that he had done for Israel.