23. Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.”
24. Gideon continued, “I have a request to make of you, that each man would give me an earring from his spoils.” (Their enemy had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites.)
25. They said, “We will certainly give them.” So they spread out a cloak, and each man threw a ring of his spoils there.
26. The weight of the golden earrings that he requested was seventeen hundred gold shekels. This was in addition to the crescent-shaped ornaments, jewelry, and purple clothing worn by the kings of Midian, as well as the chains hanging on the necks of their camels.
27. Gideon used these things to make an ephod. He put it in his city, in Ophrah, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there. It became a snare to Gideon and his family.
28. The Midianites were humbled before the children of Israel and did not lift their heads high again. The land had peace for forty years in the days of Gideon.
29. Jerub-Baal son of Joash went to his house and lived there.
30. Gideon had seventy sons, for he had many wives.
31. His concubine who lived in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelek.
32. Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age, and he was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
33. After Gideon died, the children of Israel turned again to prostitute themselves with the Baals. They made Baal-Berith their god.
34. The children of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hands of their enemies around them,
35. and they did not keep faith with the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon), for all the good he had done for Israel.