²¹ Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “You get up and attack us, for a man is judged by his strength.” So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna and took the crescent-shaped ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.

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.)

²⁶ The weight of the golden earrings that he requested was seventeen hundred gold shekels.^[a] 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.

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.