Judges 8

8 ¹ Then the men of Ephraim said to him, "What is this you have done to us, not calling us when you went to fight against Midian?" And they quarreled with him bitterly. ² But he said to them, "What have I done now compared with you? Is not the gleaning of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer? ³ Our Father gave the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, into your hands. What was I able to do compared with you?" Then their anger against him subsided when he said this.

⁴ And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the three hundred men with him, exhausted yet still in pursuit. ⁵ So he said to the men of Succoth, "Please give loaves of bread to the people following me, for they are exhausted, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian."

⁶ But the officials of Succoth said, "Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your grasp, that we should give bread to your army?"

⁷ So Gideon said, "All right then — when our Father has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will thresh your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers."

⁸ From there he went up to Penuel and spoke to them in the same way, and the men of Penuel answered him just as the men of Succoth had answered. ⁹ So he said to the men of Penuel as well, "When I come back safely, I will tear down this tower."

¹⁰ Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their armies, about fifteen thousand men — all who were left of the entire army of the peoples of the East — for a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen. ¹¹ And Gideon went up by the route of the tent dwellers, east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and attacked the army while the army felt secure. ¹² When Zebah and Zalmunna fled, he pursued them and captured the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and routed the whole army. ¹³ Then Gideon son of Joash returned from the battle by the Pass of Heres. ¹⁴ He caught a young man of Succoth and questioned him, and the young man wrote down for him the names of the officials of Succoth and its elders — seventy-seven men. ¹⁵ Then he came to the men of Succoth and said, "Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, 'Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your grasp, that we should give bread to your exhausted men?'" ¹⁶ And he took the elders of the city, and with the thorns of the wilderness and the briers he taught the men of Succoth a lesson. ¹⁷ He also tore down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.

¹⁸ Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, "What kind of men were they whom you killed at Tabor?" And they said, "They were like you, each one resembling the son of a king."

¹⁹ And he said, "They were my brothers, the sons of my own mother. As surely as our Father lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you."

²⁰ So he said to Jether his firstborn, "Get up and kill them!" But the boy did not draw his sword, for he was afraid, because he was still only a boy.

²¹ Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, "Get up yourself and strike us down, for as the man is, so is his strength." So Gideon arose and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.

Gideon Refuses to Rule

²² Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, "Rule over us — you, your son, and your grandson also — for you have saved us from the hand of Midian."

²³ But Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; our Father will rule over you." ²⁴ And Gideon said to them, "Let me make one request of you: each of you give me an earring from his plunder." (For the enemy had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

²⁵ And they answered, "We will gladly give them." So they spread out a cloak, and every man threw on it an earring from his plunder. ²⁶ The weight of the golden earrings he requested came to seventeen hundred shekels of gold, besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and besides the chains that were on the necks of their camels. ²⁷ Gideon made an ephod out of it and set it up in his city, in Ophrah, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his household.

Forty Years of Rest

²⁸ So Midian was humbled before the people of Israel and lifted up its head no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon. ²⁹ Then Jerubbaal son of Joash went and lived in his own house. ³⁰ Now Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. ³¹ His concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech. ¹ 1 v31 The name Abimelech means "my father is king" — a striking name given Gideon's refusal of kingship in this same chapter.

Gideon Dies and Israel Forgets

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

³³ As soon as Gideon was dead, the people of Israel turned back and prostituted themselves to the Baals, and they made Baal-berith their god. ³⁴ The people of Israel did not remember our Father, who had rescued them from the hand of all their enemies on every side. ³⁵ Nor did they show kindness to the household of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good he had done for Israel.