13. When Gideon was returning from the battle by way of Heres Pass,
14. he captured a young man from Sukkoth and questioned him. The young man wrote down for Gideon the names of the 77 leading men of Sukkoth.
15. Then Gideon went to the men of Sukkoth and said, “Remember when you refused to help me? You said that you couldn't give any food to my exhausted army because I hadn't captured Zebah and Zalmunna yet. Well, here they are!”
16. He then took thorns and briars from the desert and used them to punish the leaders of Sukkoth.
17. He also tore down the tower at Penuel and killed the men of that city.
18. Then Gideon asked Zebah and Zalmunna, “What about the men you killed at Tabor?”They answered, “They looked like you — every one of them like the son of a king.”
19. Gideon said, “They were my brothers, my own mother's sons. I solemnly swear that if you had not killed them, I would not kill you.”
20. Then he said to Jether, his eldest son, “Go ahead, kill them!” But the boy did not draw his sword. He hesitated, because he was still only a boy.
21. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, “Come on, kill us yourself. It takes a man to do a man's job.” So Gideon killed them and took the ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.
22. After that, the Israelites said to Gideon, “Be our ruler — you and your descendants after you. You have saved us from the Midianites.”
23. Gideon answered, “I will not be your ruler, nor will my son. The Lord will be your ruler.”
24. But he went on to say, “Let me ask one thing of you. Every one of you give me the earrings you took.” (The Midianites, like other desert people, wore gold earrings.)
25. The people answered, “We'll be glad to give them to you.” They spread out a cloth, and everyone put on it the earrings that he had taken.
26. The gold earrings that Gideon received weighed nearly twenty kilogrammes, and this did not include the ornaments, necklaces, and purple clothes that the kings of Midian wore, nor the collars that were round the necks of their camels.
27. Gideon made an idol from the gold and put it in his home town, Ophrah. All the Israelites abandoned God and went there to worship the idol. It was a trap for Gideon and his family.
28. So Midian was defeated by the Israelites and was no longer a threat. The land was at peace for forty years, until Gideon died.
29. Gideon went back to his own home and lived there.
30. He had seventy sons, because he had many wives.
31. He also had a concubine in Shechem; she bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.