⁴ So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had and the rings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak that was near Shechem.^(A)

⁶ Then all the lords of Shechem and all Beth-millo came together, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar^[a] at Shechem.

²⁵ So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem.^{(A) 26} Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord.

²² Then you will defile your silver-covered idols and your gold-plated images. You will scatter them like impure things; you will say to them, “Away with you!”^(A)

²⁴ Then Gideon said to them, “Let me make a request of you; each of you give me an earring he has taken as spoil.” (For the enemy^[a] had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites.) ²⁵ “We will willingly give them,” they answered. So they spread a garment, and each threw into it an earring he had taken as spoil. ²⁶ The weight of the golden earrings that he requested was one thousand seven hundred shekels of gold (apart from the crescents and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian and the collars that were on the necks of their camels). ²⁷ Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his town, in Ophrah, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.^(A)

²⁵ The images of their gods you shall burn with fire. Do not covet the silver or the gold that is on them and take it for yourself, because you could be ensnared by it, for it is abhorrent to the Lord your God.^(A)

⁵ But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles,^[a] and burn their idols with fire.^(A)

²⁰ He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.^(A)