³³ As soon as Gideon died, the Israelites relapsed and prostituted themselves with the Baals, making Baal-berith their god.^(A)

⁴⁶ When all the lords of the Tower of Shechem heard of it, they entered the stronghold of the temple of El-berith.^(A)

⁴ They gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the temple of Baal-berith with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows who followed him.^(A)

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)

¹⁹ But whenever the judge died, they would relapse and behave worse than their ancestors, following other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They would not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.^(A)

¹⁷ Yet they did not listen even to their judges, for they lusted after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their ancestors had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord; they did not follow their example.^(A)

⁹ Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.^(A)

¹⁷ Now after the death of Jehoiada the officials of Judah came and did obeisance to the king; then the king listened to them. ¹⁸ They abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and served the sacred poles^[a] and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.^(A)

² Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all his days because the priest Jehoiada instructed him.

²⁷ They went out into the field and gathered the grapes from their vineyards, trod them, and celebrated. Then they went into the temple of their god, ate and drank, and ridiculed Abimelech.^(A)