Judges 8:22-35 - Gideon's Legacy
22 Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, "Rule over us, both you, and your son, and your son's son also; for you have saved us out of the hand of Midian."
23 Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you." 24 Gideon said to them, "I would make a request of you, that you would give me every man the earrings from his plunder." (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)
25 They answered, "We will willingly give them." They spread a garment, and every one of them threw an earring from his plunder. 26 The weight of the golden earrings that he requested was one thousand and seven hundred pieces of gold, besides the crescents, and the pendants, and the purple clothing that was on the kings of Midian, and besides the chains that were about their camels' necks. 27 Gideon made an ephod of it, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel prostituted themselves after it there; and it became a snare to Gideon, and to his house.
28 So Midian was subdued before the children of Israel, and did not become a threat again. The land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon. 29 Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and lived in his own house.
30 Gideon had seventy sons conceived from his body; for he had many wives. 31 His concubine who was in Shechem, she also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech. 32 Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
33 It happened, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and played the prostitute after the Baals, and made Baal Berith their god. 34 The children of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side; 35 neither did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shown to Israel.