Judges 8

1 Then the descendants of Ephraim said to Gideon, “Why have you acted toward us like this? When you went out to fight against the people of Midian, why did you not summon us [to help you]?” They rebuked Gideon severely.

And the men of Ephraim came and said to him, Why did you not send for us when you went to war against Midian? And they said sharp and angry words to him.

2 But Gideon replied, “I have done [RHQ] very little compared with what you have done! My small clan of descendants of Abiezer only started the battle, but [your very large group of] descendants of Ephraim [helped me to finish the task very well. It is like] the final grapes of the harvest being much better than the first grapes that are picked.

And he said to them, What have I done in comparison with you? Is not that which Ephraim took up after the grape-cutting better than all the grapes which Abiezer got in from the grape-cutting?

3 God enabled you to defeat Oreb and Zeeb, the generals of the army from Midian. That is [RHQ] much more important than what I did!” After Gideon told them that, they no longer resented what he had done.

God has given into your hands the chiefs of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; what have I been able to do in comparison with you? And when he said this, their feeling about him became kinder.

4 Then Gideon and his 300 men [went east and] crossed the Jordan [River]. Although they were very tired, they continued to pursue their enemies.

Then Gideon came to Jordan and went over it with his three hundred, overcome with weariness and in need of food.

5 When they arrived at Succoth [town], Gideon said to the town leaders, “Please give my men some food! They are very tired. We are pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.”

And he said to the men of Succoth, Give bread cakes to my people, for they are overcome with weariness, and I am going on after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.

6 But the leaders of Succoth replied, “You have not caught [RHQ] Zebah and Zalmunna yet. So why should we give food to your troops [now? Catch them first, and then we will give you food].”

But the chiefs of Succoth said, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna even now in your hand that we are to give bread to your army?

7 Gideon replied, “[Because you said that], after Yahweh enables us to defeat Zebah and Zalmunna, we will return. And then we will make whips from thorns from the desert, and with them we will rip the flesh off your bones!”

Then Gideon said, Because of this, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hands, I will have you stretched on a bed of thorns of the waste land and on sharp stems, and have you crushed as grain is crushed on a grain-floor.

8 From there, Gideon [and his 300 men] went to Peniel and asked for food there, but the people gave him the same answer.

So he went up from there to Penuel and made the same request to the men of Penuel; but they gave him the same answer as the men of Succoth had given.

9 So he said to the men of Peniel, “After I defeat those kings, I will return and tear down this tower!”

So he said to the men of Penuel, When I come back in peace, I will have this tower broken down.

10 By that time, Zebah and Zalmunna had gone to Karkor [town] with 15,000 troops. They were all that were left of the armies that had come from the east. 120,000 of their men had already been killed.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor and their armies with them, about fifteen thousand men, those of all the army of the children of the east who were still living; for a hundred and twenty thousand of their swordsmen had been put to death.

11 Gideon [and his men] went east along the road on which caravans travel. They went past Nobah and Jogbehah [villages] and arrived at the enemy camp by surprise.

And Gideon went up by the way used by the people living in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and made an attack on the army when they had no thought of danger.

12 Zebah and Zalmunna fled, but Gideon’s men pursued them and captured them and all their warriors.

And Zebah and Zalmunna went in flight; and he went after them, and took the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and put all the army to the curse.

13 After that, Gideon and his men [took Zebah and Zalmunna with them and] started to return, going through Heres Pass.

Then Gideon, the son of Joash, went back from the fight:

14 There he captured a young man from Succoth, and demanded that he write down the names of all of the leaders in the town. The young man wrote down seventy-seven names.

And taking prisoner a young man of the people of Succoth, he got from him, in answer to his questions, a list of the chiefs of Succoth and the responsible men, seventy-seven men.

15 Then Gideon and his men returned to Succoth and said to those leaders, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna. When we were here before, you made fun of me and said ‘You have not [RHQ] caught Zebah and Zalmunna yet! After you catch them, we will give your exhausted men some food.’”

So he came to the men of Succoth and said, Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, on account of whom you made sport of me, saying, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna even now in your hand, that we are to give bread to your army who are overcome with weariness?

16 Then Gideon’s men took the town leaders and whipped them with whips made from briers from the desert, to teach them [that they deserved to be punished for not giving them any food].

Then he took the responsible men of the town and had them crushed on a bed of thorns and sharp stems.

17 Then [they went to] Peniel and tore down the tower, and killed all the men in the town.

And he had the tower of Penuel broken down and the men of the town put to death.

18 Then Gideon said to Zebah and Zalmunna, “The men you killed near Tabor [Mountain], what did they look like?” They replied, “They were like you; they all looked like they were sons of a king.”

Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, Where are the men whom you put to death at Tabor? And they gave answer, As you are, so were they; every one of them was like a king's son.

19 Gideon replied, “They were my brothers! Just as surely as Yahweh lives, I would not kill you if you had not killed them.”

And he said, They were my brothers, my mother's sons: by the life of the Lord, if you had kept them safe, I would not put you to death.

20 Then he turned to his oldest son, Jether. He said to him, “Kill them!” But Jether was only a boy, and he was afraid, so he did not pull out his dagger [to kill them].

Then he said to Jether, his oldest son, Up! Put them to death. But the boy did not take out his sword, fearing because he was still a boy.

21 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, “Do not ask a young boy to do the work that a man should do!” So Gideon killed both of them. Then he took the gold ornaments from the necks of their camels.

Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Up! Put an end to us yourself: for you have a man's strength. Then Gideon got up and put Zebah and Zalmunna to death and took the ornaments which were on their camels' necks.

22 Then a group of Israeli men [came to] Gideon and said to him, “You be our ruler! [We want] you and your son and your grandsons [to] be our rulers, because you rescued us from the Midian army.”

Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, Be our ruler, you and your son and your son's son after him; for you have been our saviour from the hands of Midian.

23 But Gideon replied, “No, I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you. Yahweh will rule over you.”

But Gideon said to them, I will not be a ruler over you, and my son will not be a ruler over you: it is the Lord who will be ruler over you.

24 Then he said, “I request only one thing. I request that each of you give me one earring from the things you captured after the battle.” [All the men descended from Ishmael wore gold earrings.]

Then Gideon said to them, I have a request to make to you; let every man give me the ear-rings he has taken. (For they had gold ear-rings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

25 They replied, “We will be glad to give earrings to you!” So they spread a cloth [on the ground], and each man threw on it one gold earring that he had taken [from a man he had killed in the battle].

And they gave answer, We will gladly give them. So they put down a robe, every man dropping into it the ear-rings he had taken.

26 The weight of all the earrings was (43 pounds/19.4 kg.). That did not include other things [that they gave to Gideon]—the other ornaments or the pendants or the clothes that the kings of Midian wore or the gold chains that were on the necks of their camels.

The weight of the gold ear-rings which he got from them was one thousand, seven hundred shekels of gold; in addition to the moon-ornaments and jewels and the purple robes which were on the kings of Midian, and the chains on their camels' necks.

27 Gideon made/decorated a sacred vest from the gold, and later he put it in his hometown, Ophrah. But soon the Israeli people started to worship the vest. So it became like a trap [MET] for the people, [causing them to worship it instead of worshiping only God].

And Gideon made an ephod from them and put it up in his town Ophrah; and all Israel went after it there and were false to the Lord; and it became a cause of sin to Gideon and his house.

28 That is how the Israelis defeated the people from Midian. The people of Midian did not become strong enough to attack Israel again. So while Gideon was alive, there was peace in the land for 40 years.

So Midian was broken before the children of Israel and the Midianites never got back their strength. And the land had peace for forty years, in the days of Gideon.

29 Gideon went back home to live there.

And Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, went back to his house and was living there.

30 He had many wives, and they bore him seventy sons.

Gideon had seventy sons, the offspring of his body; for he had a number of wives.

31 He also had a slave wife in Shechem [town], who bore him a son whom he named Abimelech.

And the servant-wife he had in Shechem had a son by him, to whom he gave the name Abimelech.

32 Gideon died when he was very old. They buried his body in the grave where his father Joash was buried, at Ophrah, in the land belonging to the descendants of Abiether.

And Gideon, the son of Joash, came to his end when he was very old, and his body was put in the resting-place of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

33 But as soon as Gideon died, the Israelis [stopped worshiping God and started worshiping the images of the god Baal, like] [MET] adultresses [leave their husbands and go to sleep with other men]. They made a [statue of a] new god called Baal-Berith.

And after the death of Gideon, the children of Israel again went after the gods of Canaan and were false to the Lord, and made Baal-berith their god.

34 They forgot about Yahweh, the one who had rescued them from all their enemies that surrounded them.

And the children of Israel did not keep in their minds the Lord their God, who had been their saviour from all their haters on every side;

35 And even though Gideon had done many good things for the Israelis, they were not kind to Gideon’s family.

And they were not kind to the house of Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, in reward for all the good he had done to Israel.