1 The men of Ephraim said to him, "Why have you treated us this way, not summoning us when you went to fight with Midian?" They argued fiercely with him.
2 He replied, "What have I done now, next to you? Are not Ephraim's gleanings better than Abiezer's whole vintage?
3 Into your hands God handed the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. What could I do, next to you?" When he said this, their temper toward him cooled.
4 Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed it, he and his three hundred men, worn out but still in pursuit.
5 He said to the men of Succoth, "Please give some loaves of bread to the troops who are following me; they are worn out, and I am chasing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian."
6 The officials of Succoth said, "Do you already have the palms of Zebah and Zalmunna in your hand, that we should give your army bread?"
7 Gideon said, "Very well; when the LORD has handed Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will flail your flesh with desert thorns and with briers."
8 He went up from there to Penuel and said the same to them, and the men of Penuel answered him just as the men of Succoth had.
9 To the men of Penuel too he said, "When I come back safe, I will pull this tower down."
10 Zebah and Zalmunna were at Karkor, and their forces with them, some fifteen thousand, all that remained of the whole army of the sons of the east; those who had fallen were a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen.
11 Gideon went up by the route of those who live in tents, east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and attacked the army while the army was off its guard.
12 Zebah and Zalmunna fled; he chased them and seized both kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and the whole army he threw into terror.
13 Gideon son of Joash came back from the battle by the pass of Heres.
14 He seized a young man from Succoth and questioned him, and he wrote down for him the names of Succoth's officials and elders, seventy-seven men.
15 He came to the men of Succoth and said, "Look, here are Zebah and Zalmunna, over whom you mocked me, saying, 'Do you already have the palms of Zebah and Zalmunna in your hand, that we should give bread to your exhausted men?'"
16 He took the city's elders, and desert thorns and briers, and with them taught the men of Succoth a lesson.
17 He pulled down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.
18 He said to Zebah and Zalmunna, "Where are the men you killed at Tabor?" They said, "They were like you; every one had the look of a king's son."
19 He said, "They were my brothers, my mother's sons. As the LORD lives, if you had spared their lives, I would not kill you."
20 He told Jether his firstborn, "Up, kill them!" But the boy did not draw his sword; he was afraid, being still a boy.
21 Zebah and Zalmunna said, "You get up and strike us down, for as the man is, so is his might." So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescents that hung on their camels' necks.
22 The men of Israel said to Gideon, "Rule over us, both you and your son and your grandson, since you have rescued us from the hand of Midian."
23 Gideon answered them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you."
24 Gideon also said to them, "I have one request to ask of you: let each of you give me an earring from his spoil." (They had golden earrings, since they were Ishmaelites.)
25 They said, "We will give them, gladly." They spread out a cloak, and each man threw onto it an earring from his spoil.
26 The gold earrings he asked for weighed one thousand seven hundred shekels of gold, not counting the crescents, the pendants, and the purple robes the kings of Midian wore, and not counting the chains around their camels' necks.
27 Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his town, Ophrah. All Israel went whoring after it there, and it became a trap for Gideon and his household.
28 Thus Midian was brought low before the children of Israel and raised its head no more, and the land was at rest for forty years in Gideon's days.
29 Jerubbaal son of Joash went back to his house and lived there.
30 Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, because he had many wives.
31 His concubine at Shechem bore him a son as well, and he named him Abimelech.
32 Gideon son of Joash died at a ripe old age and was buried in his father Joash's tomb at Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
33 No sooner was Gideon dead than the children of Israel turned back and went whoring after the Baals; they set up Baal-berith as their god.
34 The children of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hand of all their enemies round about,
35 and they did not deal kindly with the house of Jerubbaal, Gideon, for all the good he had done to Israel.