Judges 8:24-33

24Gideon also said, ‘I will ask you only to do one thing for me. Each of you should give me one ear-ring from the things that you took from our enemies.’ (The Midianites wore gold ear-rings because they were descendants of Ishmael.)

25The people replied, ‘We are happy to give them to you.’ So they put a coat on the ground. Each man threw a ring onto it.

26The weight of all the rings was 20 kilograms. They also had valuable silver images and jewels. They had valuable clothes that the kings of Midian wore and necklaces from the camels.

27Gideon used the gold to make an image of an ephod. He put it in Ophrah, where he lived. All the Israelites came there and they worshipped the image. It caused them to turn away from the true God. It became like a trap that caught Gideon and his family.

28The Israelites now had complete power over the Midianites. The Midianites were too ashamed to fight against them. While Gideon was alive, the land of Israel had peace for 40 years.

29Then Gideon went back home to live.

30He had many wives. They gave birth to 70 sons for him.

31Gideon also had a slave wife who lived in Shechem. She gave birth to a son for him. Gideon called him Abimelech.

32Joash's son Gideon died when he was very old. People buried him in the grave of his father, Joash. That was in Ophrah, on the land of Abiezer's clan.

33Soon after Gideon died, the Israelites stopped being faithful to the Lord. They started to worship the idols of Baal again. They chose Baal-Berith to be their new god.