24. He continued, "I do ask one thing. I want each of you to give me an earring. I'm talking about the earrings you took from your enemies." It was the practice of the people in the family line of Ishmael to wear gold earrings.
25. The people of Israel said, "We'll be glad to give them to you." So they spread out a piece of clothing. Each man threw a ring on it from what he had taken.
26. The weight of the gold rings Gideon asked for was 43 pounds. That didn't include the moon-shaped necklaces the kings of Midian had worn. It didn't include their other necklaces or their purple clothes. And it didn't include the gold chains that had been on the necks of their camels.
27. Gideon made an object out of all of the gold. It looked like the linen apron the high priest of Israel wore. He placed it in Ophrah. That was his hometown. All of the people of Israel worshiped it there. They weren't faithful to the Lord. So the gold object became a trap to Gideon and his family.
28. Israel brought Midian under their control. Midian wasn't able to attack Israel anymore. So the land was at peace for 40 years. The peace lasted as long as Gideon was living.
29. Jerub-Baal, the son of Joash, went back home to live. Jerub-Baal was another name for Gideon.
30. He had 70 sons of his own. That's because he had a lot of wives.
31. And he had a concubine who lived in Shechem. She also had a son by him. Gideon named that son Abimelech.
32. Gideon, the son of Joash, died when he was very old. His body was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah. Ophrah was in the territory that belonged to the family line of Abiezer.
33. As soon as Gideon had died, the people of Israel joined themselves to the gods that were named after Baal. Israel wasn't faithful to the Lord. They worshiped Baal-Berith as their god.
34. They forgot what the Lord their God had done for them. He had saved them from the power of their enemies who were all around them.