Judges 8

¹ Now, the men of Ephraim said to Gideon, ‘What do you mean by treating us like this, not summoning us when you went to fight with Midian?’ And they reproached him bitterly.

² He answered, ‘What have I done when compared to you? Is not the gleaning of Ephraim’s grapes better than the vintage of Abiezer?

³ Into your power Yahweh has given the chieftains of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. Can what I managed to do compare with what you have done?’ And at these words their anger left them.

⁴ Gideon reached the Jordan and crossed it, but he and his three hundred companions were tired out and famished.

⁵ So he said to the men of Succoth, ‘Please give my followers a few loaves of bread, because they are tired out, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna,[*a] the kings of Midian’.

⁶ The chieftains of Succoth answered, ‘Give bread to your army? Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your grasp?’

⁷ And Gideon answered, ‘Very well! When Yahweh has put Zebah and Zalmunna into my power, I will tear your flesh with desert thorn and briar.’

⁸ From there he went up to Penuel and asked the men of Penuel the same thing; they answered as those of Succoth had done.

⁹ And to those of Penuel he made a similar reply, ‘When I return victorious, I will destroy this tower’.

¹⁰ Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their army, about fifteen thousand men, all who remained of the army of the sons of the east. Those who had fallen were a hundred and twenty thousand fighting men.

¹¹ Gideon went up the nomads’ way, eastwards of Nobah and Jogbehah, and routed the army when it thought itself in safety.

¹² Zebah and Zalmunna fled. He pursued them; he took the kings of Midian prisoner, both Zebah and Zalmunna. And he utterly destroyed the army.

¹³ After the battle, Gideon returned by the Ascent of Heres.

¹⁴ He seized a young man, one of the people of Succoth, and questioned him, and the young man wrote down the names of the chieftains and elders of Succoth for him – seventy seven men.

¹⁵ Then Gideon came to the people of Succoth and said, ‘Here you see Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me and said, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your grasp, for us to give bread to your tired troops?”‘

¹⁶ Then he seized the elders of the city, and took desert thorn and briar and tore the men of Succoth with them.

¹⁷ He destroyed the tower of Penuel and slaughtered the townsmen.

¹⁸ Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, ‘The men you killed at Tabor-what were they like?’ They answered, ‘They looked like you. Every one of them carried himself like the son of a king.’

¹⁹ Gideon replied, ‘They were my brothers, the sons of my own mother; as Yahweh lives, if you had spared their lives I would not kill you’.

²⁰ Then he ordered Jether his eldest son: ‘Stand up and kill them’. But the boy did not draw his sword; he dared not; he was still only a lad.

²¹ Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, ‘Stand up yourself, and strike us down; for as a man is, so is his strength’. Then Gideon stood up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna; and he took the crescents from round their camels’ necks.

²² The men of Israel said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us, you and your sons and your grandson,[*b] because you have rescued us from the power of Midian’.

²³ But Gideon answered them, ‘It is not I who shall rule over you, nor my son; Yahweh must be your lord’.

²⁴ But Gideon went on, ‘Let me make one request of you. Let every man of you give me one of the rings out of his spoils’ – for the vanquished army had golden rings, because they were Ishmaelites.

²⁵ They answered, ‘Gladly’. So he spread out his cloak, and on it they threw, every man

²⁶ The weight of the golden rings be had asked for reached seventeen hundred shekels of gold, besides the crescents and the earrings and purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and besides the collars round their camels’ necks, too.

²⁷ Of all this, Gideon made an ephod[*c] and put it in his own city of Ophrah. After him, all Israel prostituted themselves to it, and it was a snare for Gideon and his family.

²⁸ Thus Midian was humbled before the Israelites. They did not lift up their heads again, and the land enjoyed rest for forty years, as long as Gideon lived.

²⁹ So Jerubbaal son of Joash withdrew and lived in his own house.

³⁰ Gideon had seventy sons begotten by him, for he had many wives.

³¹ His concubine, who lived in Shechem, bore him a son too, whom he called Abimelech.

³² Gideon son of Joash was blessed in his old age; he died, and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father, at Ophrah of Abiezer.

³³ After Gideon’s death, the people of Israel again began to prostitute themselves to the Baals, and took Baal-berith for their god.

³⁴ The Israelites no longer remembered Yahweh their God, who had rescued them from all the enemies round them.

³⁵ And towards the family of Jerubbaal-Gideon-they remained ungrateful for all its good deeds to Israel.